• Table of Contents
• What You’re Up Against
• Reading Reality
• The Journey
• Arrival & New Horizons

So who is responsible here? I would suggest that we all are, and I am purposefully approaching this from a holistic perspective. All of humanity can be likened to a single human body, composed of various individual parts but designed to work in harmonious systems. To varying extents we cause or have allowed the state of affairs in our own lives and in society to reach the point where we’re currently at. For sure, some individuals, groups, institutions, and businesses have had greater impact in shaping certain outcomes to their short-term advantage. But when it comes to responsibility for changing the situation, none of us can sit idly and point a finger at someone or some institution and say, once THEY change the world will be all hunky-dory. We bear responsibility for the choices we make. And we make choices every minute of every day, as individuals. But through our associations and work, perhaps we’re also part of those institutions or businesses, and we certainly are part of the social environment which comprises the American culture. So through our professional and social interactions, we can impact those environments too.

Many of the choices we make are financial, but many more have financial or economic implications. For sure they have moral implications (which we’ll explore later). And so we have a two-fold moral purpose: to improve ourselves while simultaneously improving the world around us. For the scope of this book, we’ll primarily focus on your role as an individual, the relationships you have with the world around you, and what you can do about your financial situation, given the new realities we’re facing.