Time to rethink "Hi, my name is C______ and I worry about money. "

(audience at home chimes in) "Good morning C_____! " in the sort of monotonous atonal way that groups of 10 people on folding chairs chant.

I read an interesting (though not good) book the other day that got me thinking about the nearly universal concept of money in a slightly different way. In this book, Yvon Chouinard talks about his 30+ years running Patagonia and how they were focused not on the money they could make but the good they could do. Money was one tool, but one of many.

So I got to thinking how different life for me would be (in the better sort of way) if instead of balancing checkbooks (a myth) tabulating total values of stocks and stuff, if I did a monthly or annual report of how much good my family was able to accomplish.

We get tons of chances. We let most of them go by because they cost that otehr stuff that I more accurately keep track of.

The dilemna I run into is how to keep the important work from colliding with the tool necessary to achieve it. And then I ask, "is there really a conflict."

"Consumption" by nature is "destruction," so having less of the currency of consumption, may in and of itself be doing good. At last.. a positive feedback loop.

So for February, I think I'm going to spend the $2100 to insulate a tenement of mine that is uninsulated. (I just found this out and it sickens me.)

In March, maybe I'll sell my SUV for scrap.  ¶ 8:15 AM