Urban Thought Collective

I woke up this morning finding the television still on with the news reporting how crime has increased in some counties of Atlanta. Apparently, it’s a byproduct of the economic crisis. They say smash and grabs – folks breaking windows of homes, cars and businesses and grabbing whatever they can – are up 15 percent. Even a well-known, black-owned barbeque joint, “This Is It,” said they got over 400 job applicants for their new location. Four hundred??? It’s definitely a sign of the times.

An hour later I found myself at the grocery store to pick up some items so I won’t spend money buying lunch this work week. My conserving money has really little to do with the economy, but more about me being conscious of what I’m investing in. Is spending money to eat at a restaurant when I have a refrigerator full of food helping me invest in building my dream? I believe where I spend my money is evidence of where my head is.

Anyway, I picked up a couple of things, and was on my way out of the door when an elderly man set off the alarm. An officer was fast on his heels along with a store employee. The officer kept asking the employee, “This one? This one?” almost in disbelief that he was instructed to stop this old man who was staggering with a cane, humped over. The employee nodded his head and they pulled him aside, saying they wanted to ask him some questions. They had to repeat it a couple of times because he was hard of hearing. I couldn’t bear to watch so I left.

I started thinking, what did he steal? Some FOOD??? Normally, people who steal food are hungry!!! Not that I advocate stealing, but damn. He’s an elderly man who is hungry. It’s not like our great nation treats our elders with the utmost respect by making sure their social security is enough for them to sustain a comfortable lifestyle. No way. Our government cuts it to the point where people have to come out of retirement to work just so they can survive. They are even predicting that Social Security will be spending more than it’s collecting by 2017, making it bankrupt for those who come after the retired baby boomers. Haven’t you noticed more elders working? I see a lot of them as cashiers and in customer service positions. It’s sad. They’re supposed to be enjoying their golden years, but instead, they’re working minimum wage jobs, and I guess, doing that they got to do in order to feed themselves.

I felt myself getting pissed when a concept on wealth Deepak Chopra shared came to mind. It’s about the difference between wealth and money. I looked it up on his blog and found it. In fact, here’s a video of him addressing the economic crisis, and explaining how war, guns and bloodshed is a manifestation of what is collectively considered wealth. It’s very enlightening.

He also offers an exercise on how to take our focus off of the crisis and focus on creating wealth in our lives. He calls it a mind map. It’s something I’m going to do and would like for us to do it together. I think we all could use a distraction.

Peace.

UTC readers: In all that we seek to be or do or have, we humbly realize that in the Presence is our power to think, our very thought of aspiration, our will to commence, our strength to keep on, our power to achieve, and the glory of all our accomplishments. This is the Truth and it is now done. ~ A prayer from “Discover the Power Within You”

Yaminah Ahmad is editor-in-chief of The Atlanta Voice and contributing editor to Collective Voices, a newspaper published by the non-profit, SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective. More information on the group can be found at www.sistersong.net. Ahmad can be reached at missyaminah@gmail.com.