Families rethink values, priorities

Despite persistent income contraction from a disastrously sluggish economy, families throughout these pearly isles have used the start of the holiday season to say Si Yuus Maase’ for all their blessings, however the lean times. It’s also time used to reassess value systems.

Deepening financial setbacks have prompted a simple desire to spend more time with family. Both have served as a reality check or a wake up call to rethink family expenses. It transcends the money aspect of everyday life to one focused on securing a wealth of experience by staying closer to loved ones. Here at home we return once more to communal sharing, the very fabric that has held families together for centuries in both calm and storm.

Yes, there are those who are focused strictly on work and the wealth that comes from it. But this comes at the expense of quality time at home with loved ones. Many, however, have discovered that more money doesn’t lead to happiness and so they get off the sybaritic treadmill in search of family realignment and the values that matter to them.

Ethan Willis, co-author of Prosper: Create the Life You Really Want and co-founder of Prospect Inc., calls it finding one’s “Polaris Point,” a personal philosophy or set of values that guides decision-making. I call it “dropping spiritual anchor” so you don’t drift dangerously into open waters or deep blue.

“One of the big shifts is that people are questioning, ‘Is the time that I’m spending bringing me greater satisfaction in my life versus something that is just on autopilot?’”

Again, we have turned to the traditional foundation of communal sharing to secure more satisfying experiences of filial love, spiritual growth, shared precious moments, and a sense of value and purpose. It is this sturdy foundation that has defined who and what we are in these pearly isles since time begun amidst the disastrous economic mess. And no matter our travails, we learn to join hands firmly and walk together through thick and thin with resiliency, a sense of comfort in the unity we have revisited and nurtured with family, time and again.
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Yes, I have kept my ears to the ground if only to listen intently to the simple folks at home, their travails and triumphs at a time when hope could easily shift to hopelessness. I’ve heard and seen it all for I have also traveled the same road before with my peers. If anything, there’s always that local resiliency to rebound by taking their future and fate into their own hands. This is another of that time to recapture the future of these isles. It’s ours!

That we live in dysfunctional times isn’t a reason to give it up. It is more the reason to regroup, stay the course, and set the path to recapturing these isles from the greedy, corrupt, and arrogant imbeciles. There’s no room for nepotism and cronyism in the dire need to re-chart the future of the NMI. It’s all in the palm of our hands.

It’s up to us to learn from the harsh lessons of recent history retarded by mediocrity of leadership who never had the enthusiasm to actually lead. Theirs is the perpetuation of an exhausted role hoping we won’t catch them tiptoeing through the tulips of irrelevancy. It’s time the old guards are given their one-way ticket to Disneyland of Irrelevancy.
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Someone once said that the water that supports the boat could also sink it. You are a living witness to this phenomenon, specifically how the water has dragged the boat to the bottom of the deep blue. We can salvage it but it takes your proactive participation to making a difference. It’s all in the palm of your hands. If you wish more of the same, it’s all up to you. If you wish to exercise parental responsibility to enable our children to have their economic freedom up ahead, then step forward and be counted. Your participation for real change matters to advocates of change to recapture our future.
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How blessed the less fortunate that food stamps has enabled them food on the family table. I can’t imagine how they could feed their children without this form of assistance. And as the economy contracts, more public sector employees who endure the fangs of austerity have availed of food stamp assistance. Pride takes second fiddle to embrace familial necessity.

It’s easy to demonize the program as creating a Nanny State like the NMI. But it is equipped with the requirement that recipients find gainful employment within a specified time. This has worked well anywhere throughout the country. Either you find a job or face the dire reality of being taken off the list of recipients.

And most recipients have either found part-time or fulltime jobs to their credit. If Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is made available, this too should help families deprived of full working hours. It’s available in all 50 states and territories. Imagine the fate of families without food stamps. We’d all be doing search and rescue to feed them by sharing what little we have for our own.
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I remember after a superstorm when USDA items were issued to families all over. The luncheon meat and canned corned beef were really tastier than those sold in grocery stores today. Folks still talk about it to this day. There was flour, powdered milk, and other items.

We even used some of it to feed our pigs when Morley Safer of 60 Minutes visited the islands. It was a negative portrayal of life on the islands, however, fully concocted so Safer could have something exciting for his segment. This is the work of the liberal media at our expense! Gee! They never really think about the image of the islands. Very condescending!

DelRosario is a regular contributor to the Saipan Tribune’s Opinion Section.