I no longer live in a world with a collapsing economy. I am creating a new one.

This Christmas our family decided to give non-material gifts to the adults in our family.

The week before the big day, I sat down at my computer and wrote letters to everyone in my family.

I have a big family and by the time I was done, I had worked fourteen hours crafting the words that would truly express why I love the people I love, who they are for me and why I find them special.

When I was done, I found a new and unexpected peace. This struck me as strange at first because I am a man who acknowledges those he loves. After some thought, I realized I had never spent that much time thinking about the people I care about in my entire life. I saw my newfound peace had always been available to me. My obsession with my “agenda” in life had merely obscured it.

I had enrolled my family in a “new kind of gift giving” in advance. When we gathered to celebrate it was like no Christmas in our past. My family is a large, intimate and loving group. We have had many wonderful times together in the past, but by removing ourselves from commercial culture and expressing our love directly instead of by purchasing (let’s be honest) unwanted gifts, we discovered a new and profound intimacy.

The experience changed me and helped me create a new conversation I had been crafting, a conversation designed to be shared.

Falling down is not always a bad thing. Waterfalls do it with abandon and are one of the most beautiful phenomena on earth.

Like almost everyone on the planet, I wasted a lot of energy in the Fall of 2008 locked in fear about the financial markets and how their collapse would impact me, my family, my businesses and my life. Every day the news reports seemed to add to my internal experience of failure and helplessness.

But I found a way out of that morass. I realized in early December that the “collapsing global economy” is just a story; a repetitive, debilitating conversation that lives in fear and insufficiency. It is a “created reality” like all other realities.

I am not saying it is a myth without power. That disturbing drama has its impact on the real world. Self-destructive conversations have consequences not only for individuals, but also for nations and economic systems. People are hurting and afraid.

But though it effects are real, the sad and pitiable tale we are telling about the global economy is also a self-fulfilling prophesy. At its core is a commonly held bad attitude, an anxiety-addicted belief in scarcity.

At our house, our finances are stretched. We have had to give up things we care about…but really, we are just fine. We are healthy. Our children and grandchildren are well and happy. We are not starving. The sun rises every morning. Most of us in this country have what I often refer to as “rich people’s problems.”

Billions of people in the world – and some here in the U. S. – really live on the edge of survival. They would laugh at our self-pity. They face much worse every day and have dealt with it their entire lives.

So I am no longer going to play that game. On Christmas day I made my stand. I will no longer meekly engage in that economic melodrama like a sheep being led to slaughter. I choose not to live like I am powerless. Living in fear, buying the spin so eagerly promoted by Fox and CNN is not putting money in my pocket, supporting my family, making me more effective or enhancing my life in any way.

To the contrary, it has exactly the opposite effect.

In 2009 I am creating a conversation that is more powerful, more fulfilling and more workable. I am creating hope and abundance. I am creating a world in which anything is possible, a world in which people all over this planet make the impossible possible every day. I am creating a life for me and my family in the new paradigm I see building all around me.

You may think I am a pie in the sky idealist, but I argue I am a pragmatist. Think about it. How is that negative story working for you? How do you feel when you wake up in the morning? How do you feel after you finish watching the news? Is something good happening in your life because you are sure things are bad? I doubt it. Why don’t you give a new story a try?

The tale I am telling is that the changes going on in our world are the collapse of a tired old way of being and the genesis of a new one that will transform our lives for the better. I am creating a conversation about a new “bottom up” economy in which all are included, one already being built all over the planet by the young and the visionary.

I am creating a system of exchange and value that recognizes our interdependence and endlessly innovative. I am building an economy of infinite possibility, of sufficiency and abundance…an economy that works for everyone.

The conversation I am having is that the old is falling away and the new is born. Winter must come before the flowers of Spring can bloom. I am telling the story of a butterfly emerging from it chrysalis, its wings unfolding…a story of the glory of flight.

The tale I am creating is not one of soft-hearted idealism. It lives in the material, in the brains and words of human beings. It is a story of hard science, corporate and political realities, a pragmatic evolution forged in technology and human cultural evolution that has been growing for many years. It is a new interpretation of reality that is available to everyone all the time. Real people can act on it in their lives at any moment. It is a conversation that makes things work where they do not, like all new technologies that have value.

We are going home, home to our better selves, home to new relationships, new systems of behavior, new technologies and new societal and economic structures. Given the state of the world we have had in the past, that is a good thing.

But before we can move forward, we have to see the debilitating conversation that prevails around us for what it is. We must turn negativity into possibility. We must make our stands for a world that works and act upon them. We must quiet the cruel wind of fear that fills the tattered sails of the sinking ship of excess, failure, scarcity, corruption, partisanship, self-interest and greed that has plagued our country and our world.

Sounds too big and too hard? It’s not. All we have to do is change the subject. All we have to do is notice the “glass half full” rather than the “glass half empty” and share what we see with those we meet. After all, positive interpretations are no less real than negative ones. There is ample evidence for both and I would assert that positivism is more practical and effective.

Perhaps you are convinced the world really is going to Hell in a handbasket and there is nothing you can do about it. Well think about this.

Throughout you life, neurons and other nerve tissues in your brain grow in response to your environment. The process is called neurogenesis. New synapses and whole new neurons are actually being added into the circuitry of your brain in response to the world around you. Metaphorically, they grow a lot like muscle tissue. If you use your muscles, they grow and get stronger. If you sit on the couch all day and watch TV, they atrophy.

Something (roughly) similar happens in your brain. Everything you think, feel and experience is a result how your brain responds to your experience and grows new neural tissues and connections to other neurons.

The more often a particular neural pathway is reinforced by environmental cues, the stronger it gets and the more embedded in your memory. So the behavior, attitudes and values with which you approach life – and the nature of your relationships with others – are built into your nervous system. They are not just ideas or attitudes. They are aspects of your physiology.

How you see the world and how the world sees you is built into your brain. But because your brain is constantly changing and growing, over time you can change that hard wiring simply by altering your thoughts, actions or your environment. Attitudes and values are not casual things. They are physical and the source of your everyday experience of life.

That means your words have power. Speaking is an act of creation. Over time, the way you describe the world creates your world. If you want a “better world,” all you have to do is “cast your vote” each day for the world that is already working.

Ever notice who is always around when your life doesn’t work? You are. You can blame it on your circumstances if you want to, but all that does is make it persist. You can blame others, but all that does is make you suffer. Maybe you should consider an alternative.

I invite you to join me in a new conversation. We can create it together in the days and months to come…and before you know it, a new and vibrant economy will emerge.

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To transform the global economy we must begin by transforming our personal economies. After all, most things that are important begin at home.

That includes the current economic crisis, which began in a cascade of foreclosures and falling real estate values.

In the body of our built environment, the home is like a single cell. If you think of all the buildings, power grids, public works and transportation systems on our planet, all the things we have built in order to maintain our complex societies, our homes are the most basic unit in the “body” of human society.

Like a cell membrane, a home allows nutrients into our vulnerable inner worlds and keeps toxins – like nosy neighbors – out. Like a cell, our homes contain thermostats and other features that maintain homeostasis, protecting us from the slings and arrows of outrageous weather.
Our homes store our financial energy like the fat on our bodies. For most of us, our homes are our largest investments. Recently we have been forced to “go on a diet” and some of us lost our assets.

Homes are where we most often reproduce and subsequently nurture our young. They are powerful expressions of our identities – as Claire Cooper Marcus pointed out in House as a Mirror of the Self. A well appointed home is an extension of our bodies. It is, as physiologist J. Scott Turner suggests in The Extended Organism, an “external organ of physiology.”

Imagine for a moment if the built infrastructure that supports our societies suddenly disappeared. The result would be the same for us as it would be for a colony of termites or a nest of bees…a sudden and devastating die off.

Theorists have long argued about the traits that have made Homo Sapiens so successful. The use of tools, opposable thumbs, the evolution of language and the highly complex social structures we create have all had their day as the seminal first cause…but the most visible evidence of mankind’s assent to dominance is our built environment.
From caves to mud huts to castles and skyscrapers, the homes we have built and the public works we have erected to sustain them, are the proof of the efficacy of this survival mechanism.

We and our homes are engaged in an ancient and profoundly interdependent relationship. Like any other animal we evolve in response to our environment, and increasingly our environment is of our own making.

Natural selection and epigenetic gene expression occur primarily in response to our most highly frequented environments and the home is the most intimate environment of man. We build them and they build us back. We are enmeshed in and altered by our relationships with them.

Your own personal definition of home – whether your current habitation meets your ideal or not – likely includes emotional ingredients like comfort, safety, rejuvenation, peace, relaxation and the privacy to escape from the perceived expectations of others.
Despite all the mischief perpetrated by stock traders, hedge funds managers, sub-prime lenders and incompetent government regulators – the stars of the story of manipulation and greed that currently batters us daily – the truth is that those bad actors are mere symptoms of the greed and self indulgence within all of us.

In truth, you and I are the building blocks of the global economy.

Like our societies, the global economy is a complex system that adapts to its environment. All such systems of relationship are made up of what systems scientists call “agents.”

Just as water molecules are the main ingredient of oceans – and homes are the most basic form in our built environment – individuals and families are the most basic ingredients of our economic and political systems.

Corporations, countries and financial markets are all made of people. What we have just seen in the global economy is an emotional and psychological “tidal wave” of anxiety.

A tidal wave is an “emergent property” of a group of water molecules. It occurs when a “society” of such molecules responds to a disruption in its environment. The same is true for a hurricane or a tornado. There is nothing in a tidal wave except sea water. It has no distinct material ingredients of its own and could not exist unless every single salt water molecule within it contained the properties that allow a massive wave to form.

The same is true about the relationship between human beings and the global economy

In a world such as I describe, the successes and failures of an economy, a country or a culture emerge from the characteristics of the individuals within it. Particularly in a democratic society, leaders arise from the shared realities of the people.

So only you and I have the power to transform our economy. Barack Obama cannot fix the problem. All of us – consumers, bankers, stockholders, the wealthy, the middle class, the poor, our international partners, academics and economists, hedge fund managers, members of Congress, the teen working at the fast food franchise and the guy on the automobile assembly line approaching retirement – will all have to work together.

It is up to us. Every individual, each family, each small business, each multi-national corporation and each government is an economy unto itself. If we are going to learn anything from this troubling experience, it is that each of us must take responsibility for our own relationship with money. We must face this reality because it is the only truly workable long term solution to our troubles. It is also moral and upright.

The media parrot and stoke our anxiety because that is what makes financial sense in a world where information is tied to profit. So we have to change the conversation ourselves. These facts mean we must give up the “one size fits all” stereotypes we use to fix blame without ignoring the realities of human nature.

We are profoundly social and collaborate with one another instinctively. Human beings are also deeply emotional. We look to those around us to assess how we should react to the world. If our neighbors are afraid, fear spreads like a virus. The same is true of optimism and courage.

People must first see the possibility of a positive change before they can strive towards it. To accomplish that in government, we must learn to distinguish the good public servant from the bad. If we want responsible corporate behavior we must reward those corporations who are responsible and give back and distinguish them in our conversations from those who are exploitative and predatory. If we want our President to be successful, we must be balance our demands for change with some sense of our own responsibility in the matter.

We must face the realities of a global economic system and understand the interdependence inherent in our global economy. “Foreigners” are not stealing our wealth. The Chinese, Indians, Mexicans, Taiwanese and Brazilians aren’t stealing our jobs. The global economy is the result of our efforts in the developed world, often imposed against the wishes of the citizens or even the leaders of those nations.

We in the West are hoist on our own petard. The impersonal realities of the marketplace are redistributing our wealth to those who compete most effectively. This occurs in the capitalistic system of value we in the West created.

We – the rich and powerful – fuel that redistribution with our endless desire for more toys, more experiences, more consumption and more status. The desperate cry of the old order – “spend, spend and spend” – is the pusher trying to entice the addict. We need to go “cold turkey” and re-examine our personal and cultural values.

And there is no turning back. This trial we face is not temporary. It is the new reality. Turning our southern border into an Iron Curtain won’t save us. Isolation and protectionism are just ways to hide under our beds and ultimately impossible to achieve in an age of open borders, international trade and monetary systems and the Internet.

Tamping down rampant consumerism does not mean our economy cannot be vibrant and diverse. It only means that we must balance our needs for profit with a vision for an economy that works for all classes, all peoples and our planet as a whole.

Again, all we have to do is change the conversation….and the rest will follow. The only real difference we can make is in our own lives and is expressed one person at a time, one family at a time. Cooperation enables us to collectively transform our systems of value. We must work together because such actions are the only solutions that will protect our descendants and the only true road to peace. We live on a planet with fixed resources but unlimited possibilities and the only workable path forward is to begin creating a world that works for everyone.

You may not care whether the “poor people” in the developing world eat or not, but you do care about the survival of your own children.

You may not like it that human society has reached the point that your survival is dependent on the survival of the impoverished masses of Africa, Asia and South America, but it is. You may pine for the good old days when we could prop up our lifestyles on the back of the “third world” but now the “third world” holds our bank notes.

That time is gone. You may not care about the state of the global environment; or that terrorism, extremist ideologies, pollution, global warming and the cascading extinction of species in stressed ecosystems around the planet are inextricably linked to economic inequalities.

But you will care when the first nuclear weapon goes off in a major western city, or the first deadly virus is released in your neighborhood by a disaffected extremist.

This is not just an economic downturn. It is a global economy in the process of transformation. We stand on the threshold of a new world order. This change will either be the beginning of a new and fairer global economic and political order; or we will see more violence, privation, destruction of the environment, all ultimately leading to the slow death of Western culture as we know it.

An analysis of user patterns on the Internet makes it clear what is to come. In developed countries, over 70% of the population is currently connected to the Internet, yet they account for only about 18% of all people online. In the rest of the world, less than 17% of the population is connected and that is changing at a rate in excess of 300% per year.

You do the numbers. We in the West cannot live in our “own little worlds” any longer. Oceans and massive weapons systems cannot protect us. Small bands of extremists have fought the most powerful military on earth to a draw. The long feared day has arrived and we only have two choices. The first and best is to take the lead in creating a world that works for all. The darker path is to withdraw into fortresses of isolationism and self interest, a choice that means our children and grandchildren will inherit a world much less hopeful than the one we knew as children.

I choose the former. My family too has been hurt by this economic downturn. We have had to give up many things we care about in the face of it. But those are just things. We are all still eating, laughing and loving one another. Many on this planet do not have that opportunity. I choose to take this experience as an profound opportunity, a necessary and beneficial adjustment to a changing world that offers new found hope and opportunity for everyone.

What will you do? Will you let fear guide you? Will you make a stand for what is right according to every moral and religious tradition on earth? Will you choose what is workable, pragmatic and honest – or will you choose to hide your head in the sand?

Will you stand with the dying husk of a world built on illusion, hollow consumption and self-interest or will you stand for our children?

One way or another, what happens in your life and our world is up to you.

It may seem impossible to make any real difference. It may seem too overwhelming to even contemplate, but truthfully you do not have to know what to do or how to do it to make a powerful commitment.

All you have to do is pick yourself up, realize you have the power to control your words…and change the conversation.