Sunday, December 3, 2006

Gen X Finances

I just want to kick this topic off...if comments start rolling in (even if they don't) I'll start fleshing out some thoughts on the subject.

The question on my mind is, "What are the effects that my generation are experiencing as a result of carrying 'some' to 'tons of' debt, pretty much right out of college?"

My family's health is fairly crappy-- to say nothing of the male pattern baldness on my horizon. Is the low-grade hum of debt in the background adding to my risk factors for the array of health problems that I'll be hoping to dodge my entire adult life? (That's pretty much rhetorical, since, from a holistic standpoint, the answer is most certainly "yes.")

It is my belief that we were made to be Free. When I look at the fact that "prosperity" in America costs so much, it makes me think that I need some serious help re-framing what it means to me to be free.

Perhaps Free doesn't equal "happy"...?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It seems that we cannot begin to touch the topic of Gen X finances without connecting the issue to the Postmodern shift in general. As our generation begins to consider the effects of consumerism as a piece that defines who Americans are, it seems imperative to ask if this is the way in which we want to choose to buy into. As story becomes more important to the lives of our generation, I wonder how we'll continue to live and function in a society whose advertising and marketing influences us in an unconscious way. How do we make the individual choices in our lives toward what we want when we are encultured by consumerism?

It is interesting to me that in a country founded on the notion of freedom, the things that we chose out of this have evolved to power and influence. How different would the financial world of our generation look if we managed to shift our value system toward one of allowing multiple stories to exist as good and true in the larger story of humanity? In attempting to know, understand, and love each other, would we find what we truly want and discover that these are things that money cannot buy?

BShep