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We humans are capable of a very strange thing: revenge.  We seek to inflict harm on others at a great cost to ourselves.

Revenge is a very peculiar behavior.  Selfishness makes sense. So does altruism. But why would we choose to harm ourselves just to hurt another?  Justice? Hatred?  Heat-of-the-moment passion?  Can there be a rational explanation?

Anthropologists think so.  Revenge — or at least the threat of revenge — keeps members of society in check.  Sure, both parties involved in the act of revenge will suffer, but society overall will be better for it.  Evolution, the argument goes, therefore favors societies that display some tendencies for revenge.

Sticking it to Wall Street

Congress’s torpedo of the financial rescue plan was just that.  Revenge.  We hardworking Americans taxpayers were angry.  We want those fancy suit-wearing finance types to suffer.  We want them to feel the pain, even at great cost to ourselves.

Over the past week, this angry sentiment permeated through the country and landed squarely in the offices of Congress.  Members of the house of representatives responded to this anger and, on Monday, killed the financial rescue plan.  Alas, sweet revenge.

It worked, perhaps too well.  Wall Street certainly feels the pain.  The financial industry is contracting fast, and New York City alone will likely lose 60,000 financial jobs.

The cost to ourselves has been great too.  The stock market reacted quickly to that news and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 778 points in the largest single-day point drop.  This stock market loss is felt by millions of Americans everywhere, in their 401(k)s, pension plans, and life savings.  The rescue package was slated for $700 billion; a commentator on NPR stated that $1.2 trillion worth of market equity evaporated on Monday alone.  Our revenge cost a 50% premium over the Bernanke-Paulson plan.  To be fair, the market has regained some of Monday’s losses, although mostly due to chatter about reviving the bailout plan.

A Second Chance

The Senate convenes tonight in an attempt to revive this $700 billion rescue bill.  After seeing Monday’s stock market drop, the common consensus is that Congress will pass this bill.  Nevertheless, there’s still a strong Internet effort to fight this bail-out plan.

These financial risk takers deserve to suffer.  But to sentence our financial industry to death is folly.  The players in the revenge plot is the people of the United States and our financial industry.  Justice, anger, and heat-of-the-moment passion all come into play.  I just hope that we gotten these feelings out of our system.

Unlike the anthropologist’s argument, there’s no rational explanation for revenge here.  After hurting the financial industry and harming ourselves, American society is going to be no better for it.

Posted on October 1st, 2008 by Ryan
Filed under: economic theory, societal concerns | 5 Comments »

Last week, Hayley went to visit her aunt in South Carolina. Once left to my own devices, I descended into a lifestyle of boyish immaturity. Beer, football, greasy foods, and video games dominated my free time.

Did you know that iGoogle offers throwback games like Frogger and PacMan for free? And did you know that these online flash games are so engaging, they can easily keep you up until 2 am or 3 am? For an entire week?

Needless to say, I was perpetually tired during my week as a bachelor. It reminded me of my “good old” college days. Those college days were good. Unfortunately sleep deprivation hurts more now that I’ve gotten old.

Back to Being a Responsible Husband

Hayley came back this week, and made me clean up our home. Our place had become a bachelor pad, not in the swanky large-screen-television posh chick-magnet kind of a way. No, it was a bachelor pad in the piles-of-dirty-clothes-and-dirty-dishes sort of a way.

Last week, I was eager to go out with the guys. Now, I tell them that I need to check in with my wife first. They laugh at me and make some jokes about shackles and balls and chains.The guys are right; having a wife reduces the time I spend doing guy-ish things with them.

I missed Hayley dearly during the week she was gone. Truthfully, I’d rather spend time with her than anyone else in the world.

Having Your Cake Beer and Eating Drinking It Too

On Thursday, I turned down a happy hour invitation, so I could spend some time with Hayley. We went out to dinner and ate BBQ at a local San Francisco dive. I drank Guinness. We watched Oregon State pull an upset victory against USC. I played my Xbox for a few hours, while Hayley read. We got to bed by midnight. I had beer, football, greasy food, video games, and enough sleep, all in the company of my wonderful wife. What more can a married man ask for?

Posted on September 27th, 2008 by Ryan
Filed under: chasing happiness, diary worthy, relationships (and money) | 1 Comment »

I wanted to write something thoughtful and intelligent about the credit crisis.  Really. I did.

I was thinking about discussing the justice (or injustice) about this government bailout plan.  There’s a lot of anger focused at Wall Street.  And there’s the Credit Default Swap (CDS).  What are they, and how can they almost single-handedly wipe out AIG?  Then there’s microeconomic theory that says it’s bad to shield risk-takers from bad outcomes.  Economists term this “moral hazard“.

But then I started watching the Bernake-Paulson testimony before congress.  And I kept thinking, “Is it me? Or does Paulson look like Skeletor?”  I tried to focus on his fiscal and monetary analysis, but I kept finding myself staring at those high cheekbones and sunken eyes.

For those who don’t know, Henry Paulson is the current Secretary of Treasury under George W. Bush and architect of the current financial bailout plan.  He was the CEO of Goldman Sachs, the premier investment bank, where his reported 2005 income was $37M.  His estimated net worth is over $700M, with almost $1/2 Billion in Goldman Sachs stocks.  Above all, he bears a strange resemblance to Skeletor.

Skeletor was my childhood image of evil.  He was the antagonist of the He-Man cartoon series and was tagged the “Evil Lord of Destruction”.

Now, I’m not saying that Wall Street or the Bush Administration or Secretary Paulson himself is evil.  In fact, I believe that Paulson is doing the best he can to prevent a wholesale financial meltdown.  Still, I must admit he looks rather creepy.

Posted on September 24th, 2008 by Ryan
Filed under: brazen, diary worthy, economic theory, societal concerns | 6 Comments »

Think back to high school.  Do you remember the different social circles — or cliques, as we used to call them?

In my high school, each group had their own space. The jocks hung out in the middle courtyard.  The band members had the art wing.  The Asian rice-rocket autophiles loitered in the parking lot, while the potheads always disappeared like a puff of smoke to some secluded location. I spent my time with the nerdy overachieving academic crowd in the back courtyard.

My high school, like many around America, could be easily stereotyped by a cheesy Disney movie.  But we all oversimplify to fit this social-hierarchy model.  Like real life, there are loose and tight communities, official and unofficial ones, and even temporary ad hoc communities.  For example, the four people who shared my lab bench in chemistry class became a small community of sorts.

People view exclusive communities — in high school and otherwise — quite negatively.  “Elist”, “closed”, and “holier-than-thou” are commonly used adjectives.  But are exclusive communities bad?

Exclusionary Politics

Last week Hayley volunteered a week of her life to, well… perpetuate the exclusivity of her former sorority.  “Recruiting” or “membership selection” are the terms she prefers.  Fraternities and sororities are one of the few types of social groups that explicitly include and exclude individuals via a formal process.  A formalized rejection from a social organization seems a bit wrong… at least according to my western egalitarian ideals.

“Isn’t that how all social groups work?” asked Hayley, “Every group includes and excludes others”.

I guess.  But it’s different to NOT get an Evite than to get one that says, “Dear Ryan, we regret to inform you that you’ve been rejected from our football BBQ and tailgate.  You are a bad football fan.  And frankly, the beer you bring sucks.”

The Most Exclusive Community

What’s the most exclusive community?  A Yale secret society?  A covert government institution?  A stealth Web 2.0 site devoted to strength, hardness, speed, and browness?  No.

The most exclusive community, in my eyes, is a marriage.  There are only two people in this community (unless you’re from a fringe Texas Mormon group).  Potential members go through a rigorous vetting process that involves the approval of friends, family, and potential in-laws.  And joining this community requires a commitment of a lifetime.

Seriously, think about it.  In a romantic relationship, you can reject people for reasons that would make a bigoted employer blush.  Here’s a few audaciously discriminatory dating comments from the Internet:

• Life’s too short to date ugly chicks
• I broke up with my boyfriend because he was too big for me
• Why I Will Never Date a White Guy
• Girls with ugly feet - a dealbreaker?
• Harder, Browner, Stronger, Faster

What would you say if your friend said that she couldn’t date someone, because he was too short?  Or too ugly?  Or too white?  Or not hard/brown/strong/fast enough?  Or he tells stupid jokes?  You’d probably say that it’s her decision and her preferences.

I have a friend who only wants to date big-breasted Asian Christian women who study science.  (He’s still single).  I laugh and tell him that’s absurd.  But I have no ethical or moral qualms about his desire to reject small-breasted Norwegian atheists who study Marxist rhetoric.

In the end, a community is made up of relationships.  We’d like to think we’re better than these petty biases and exclusiveness.  But frankly, there are people we like and people we don’t.  Too often we pretend and smile around those we dislike, while quietly shoving them away.  As much as it may sting, there’s something refreshingly honest about the sorority’s way of deciding whom you dislike and making that absolutely clear.

Posted on September 19th, 2008 by Ryan
Filed under: societal concerns | 2 Comments »

I’ve taught church Sunday school for years.  For the most part, Sunday school teachers are glorified babysitters.  Our job is to keep the kids entertained, so their parents can have an hour of peace and quiet during church.  Still, I feel obligated to teach them a little bit about God or morals or something Christian-like while they’re in my Sunday school class.

Kids and Play Money

This past Sunday I taught a class of four-to-six year old kids.  The entertainment du jour was assembling a monopoly-like Christian board game.  During this process, I saw that the kids were fascinated by the make-believe cash.

“Look at me, I’m rich,” said one kid holding a wad of play money.

“Give it to me.  I’ll hold the money,” another kid said.

“No, I want to hold the money,” said the first.

“Is this real money?” innocently asked a third quieter boy, as he was cutting out paper coins Xeroxed onto a yellow sheet.

“No,” I laughed.  “If it were real money, would you be cutting it up?”

Make-Believe Wealth, Real Greed

The quieter boy was rightfully confused.  The money was fake.  But the other kids behaved greedily.

I’ve seen this play-money greediness acted out many times over the years.  Each time it catches me a little bit off guard.  The greed — as well as the ensuing power struggle — is real, even though the money is not.

The children automatically assume roles in a play that mimics a brutish world of scarce resources.  One child, usually the oldest, biggest, or bossiest, would vie for the lion’s share of the fake money.  Another child, usually the second in the social hierarchy, would resist.  All of the intrigue in a good drama plays out.  I’d see alliances, verbal sparring, and negotiations.  They act like little politicians and warlords.

I usually watch this classroom drama unfold with fascination and anticipation.  I’d step in when the power struggle gets physical.  The kids are almost always bound to grab and tug at each other’s play money.

“Okay,” I’d say, when things start to get out of hand.  “Everybody, give me all the money.”  Most would comply.  The oldest, biggest, or bossiest of the kids would resist.  But I always win out in the end, because, well… I’m the oldest, biggest, and bossiest.

Little Behaviorists

The funny thing is that these children don’t understand the value of money.  At the most basic level, currency is worth the goods and services for which it can be traded.  Kids at this age have trouble conceptualizing the worth of one dollar (a piece of candy), ten dollars (an inexpensive lunch), or a hundred dollars (two tanks of gas).

Nevertheless, kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for.  They see how we act around money; they comprehend it; and they mimic us.  What does it say about our church worshipping attenders, when our children display clear greedy behavior?

Training Young Capitalists

When I first began teaching Sunday school, I probably would have countered the children’s greedy behavior with a lecture.  I would have extolled generosity, condemned greed, and gave them all a good brow beating.  Based on my experience, these conceptual lectures doesn’t work.

Instead, I launched into a game with them.  Each child received a set of merchandise — in this case they were a set of church-y cards.  I held all the money.  They were the sellers, and I was the sole buyer: the monopsonist.

“I’d like to buy two baptismal fonts,” I announced, “who has some to sell me?”

“I’ll sell you mine for twenty five dollars,” one kid said.

“Too much money,”  I said.

“Five dollars,” said another kid holding up the baptismal font card up to my face.

“Sold.”  I’d trade him the money for his card.

“Five dollars,” a different kid shouted.

“Three dollars,” yet another offered.  They learned to undercut each other early.

The game went on like this for a while.  I offered to buy crosses and doves and even Jesuses (what’s the plural of Jesus?).  The kids eagerly competed to sell me their goods until I ran out of money.  I’ve played this game with kids a few times, and they always seem to have fun.

In the end, the children, unprompted by me, counted the money and declared the most profitable merchant the winner.  They were completely fair and equitable in counting the money.  There was no stealing or arguing about the money.  The unbridled greed was gone… or at least shelved for another day.

Posted on September 10th, 2008 by Ryan
Filed under: Christian tradition, church, diary worthy, economic theory, societal concerns | 4 Comments »

Yes, apparently it can.  Strange, isn’t it?  I’m not talking about employees grumbling about smaller-than-expected annual raises.  Nor am I talking about those who get a sizable raise but still feel shafted.  I’m talking about an honest-to-goodness raise.

Unhappiness from a pay raise is rare.  It only applies to specific work situations.  A pay raise might make you less happy if you fulfill ALL these requirements:

1) You work for a public sector or non-profit organization.
2) You believe strongly in what you do.
3) You’re paid relatively meagerly, but enough to survive.
4) You’re happy at your work.

Those who fit ALL four of the above criteria often enjoy feeling like they’re “donating” or “sacrificing” for a good cause.  This “sacrificing for a good cause” feeling is important to many workers’ job satisfaction.  The raise eked out by these non-profit and public sector employers — as genuinely well-intentioned as they may be — can feel like an insult.

I’ve always thought that I was too capitalistic to be affected by these silly warm-fuzzy feelings.  Money is money.  Pay me more.  I’d happily risk feeling insulted… or so I thought.

The Job I Love

I’ve taken on a part-time job teaching swimming to children.  I love it.  It’s so much fun, I’d be willing to pay money to do this job.  Except, well… they pay me.  My second job fits all four of the criteria:

1) I work for the local YMCA, which seems superb at being non-profitable.
2) I believe swimming is a very valuable life skill for children.
3) The kindest word to describe my YMCA paycheck is “cute”; fortunately, I don’t need to survive on it.
4) I love the work.  It’s fun, physically active, challenging, invigorating, and incredibly rewarding.  Plus the kids are really cute and amusing.

I like thinking about my swim lessons.  I picture the proud grin of my 12-year-old student, who completed her first successful flip-turn.  I envision the energetic splashing of my 5-year-old student.  “Don’t worry,” I say to a concerned bystander on the pool deck, “he’s not drowning.  That’s just the way he swims.”

My Pay Raise

My “pay raise” began this week, when I managed to cut out the YMCA middle man.  An acquaintance found out that I taught swimming lessons.  We worked out a deal where I teach her son at their swimming pool.  The 4-year-old boy is a joyous bundle of energy, with flailing scrawny limbs and a high-pitched screech.  He is as fun to teach as any other student.  But the new found cash (one privately arranged lesson earns triple my wage at the YMCA) seems to have altered my perspective.

My good ol’ business school training kicked in.  Working as a contractor — rather than a W-2 employee — has a lot of tax benefits.  Business expenses, like the cost of driving, are tax deductible.  Tax free gasoline?  What’s better than that?

I Consider Starting my Own Business

I did a little research for starting my own business and saving a little money on taxes.  The basic business distinctions, like corporations or partnerships, aren’t too bad.  But the law is never that easy.

Washington legislators need jobs, so assaulted the legal definition of corporations and partnerships with modifiers: adjectives and adverbs and tautologies.  They created the C-corporation, the S-corporation, and the limited liability corporation (LLC).   They drew legal distinctions between the plain old partnership (or general partnership), the limited partnership (LP), and the limited liability partnership (LLP).

The one that takes the cake is LLLP.  What’s the LLLP you ask?  It’s the limited liability limited partnership.  I kid you not.  It’s in Wikipedia and described as a “modification of the limited partnership”.  My head started hurting.

Hayley’s Advice

I talked to my wife about my thoughts while we were lying in bed, close to midnight.  I explained how I could save money on taxes.  I’d need a business; I’d need the right tax knowledge and the proper tax forms; and I’d need to consider liability concerns, so maybe I’ll need business liability insurance.

“Why are you doing this?” Hayley asked.

“I dunno… to make more money,” I said.

“A lot more money?” she asked.

“No… not really,” I admitted.

“Are you enjoying this research?”

“Of course not, it’s a pain in the butt.”

“But you like teaching swimming,”  Hayley said.

“Yes, I love teaching swimming,”  I said.

“Then stop wasting your time worrying about taxes and liability insurance.  Spend your time teaching swimming instead.  This is, after all, supposed to be your fun job.”

I lay there in bed for a moment and thought.  Hayley’s right.  I had managed to sap the fun out of my fun job.  Thinking about the money has squeezed out my thoughts about working with children — the part that I love.

I’d typically spend a few moments of the day looking forward to my swim lessons.  I’d brainstorm about new water games and ways to help kids learn while having fun.  These thoughts usually left me in a good mood.  Instead, I’ve found myself spending that time in relative gloom reading business-related legalese. Can my pay raise make me less happy?  I’d say that it just did.

Posted on August 29th, 2008 by Ryan
Filed under: brazen, charitable, chasing happiness, diary worthy, societal concerns | 1 Comment »

Now that Michael Phelps has achieved his Olympic quest of winning eight gold medals, a new quest begins: monetizing his Olympic success.  Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan have transformed themselves from great athletes to global sporting brands.  Phelps seeks to do the same.

Phelps’ agent, Peter Charlise, says that marketing requests have been rolling in daily, since they’ve arrived in Beijing.  According to an article from the Wall Street Journal, proposals have included boblehead dolls, paintings, car rims, tuxedos, and dog food.  Two separate people have even offered to sculpt statues of the Olympic swimmer.

Show Me the Money

For all of the silly ideas pitched, there is real money in the deal.  A decade ago, Nike was a fringe player in the golf market.  Today, after several smart and deliberate marketing moves with Tiger Woods as their figurehead, Nike is a well-respected brand in golf.  With Phelps, they can potentially do the same in swimming.

For this to work, Nike will need to pry Phelps away from Speedo, his current sponsor.  Speedo has done well on Phelp’s recent success.  They have sold tens of thousands of $25-a-piece Phelps jerseys and plan to retail the high-tech racing swimsuit he wore at $550 each.

What’s the value of eight Beijing Olympic gold medals in marketing opportunities?  Phelps’ agent, Charlies estimated, “I’d say $100 million of the course of his lifetime.”

Worth Its Weight in Gold

How much is $100 million in gold?

As of today (8/20/08), gold trades at $816 per troy ounce on the commodities market.  One hundred million dollars will buy you 122,549 troy ounces of gold, equivalent to 8,412.97 pounds or 4.2 tons of gold.  Divide that by eight Beijing gold medals, and there you have it.

If each of of Phelp’s Beijing medals were “worth its weight in gold”, they would weigh over half a ton each — that is 1,051.62 pounds of pure gold.

Posted on August 20th, 2008 by Ryan
Filed under: societal concerns, trend spotting | 3 Comments »

Earlier this week, I published a blog post detailing my economic discussions with Dr. Hickey, who is both my boss’s boss and a self-described old school hippie.  After I published my last post, Dr. Hickey’s brother, Jeff Hickey, commented on my site.  He kindly pointed out that I left myself off of the diagram and that I ought to be “staring up at Dr. Hickey”.  So, ladies and gentlemen, here is my newly updated economic diagram:

Skip These Two Paragraphs If Economics Bore You

If you remember your high school economics, the diagonal lines are the demand curves.  We read it by choosing a price (on the Y-axis), and the X-axis (or Q-axis) will tell you the corresponding demand.  The idea is simple.  The cheaper we price the product (or service, in this case), the more we can sell.  The inverse is true too.  If the price is higher, fewer people would buy it.

Economics focuses on optimization.  In this particular case, both Dr. Hickey and I can only work one full time job each.  There’s no point in pricing our services lower to sell a greater quantity.  Of course, people take pay cuts for career changes and better work environments, but that’s a completely different economic analysis.

Back to My Story

After we wade through the economic gobbledygook, there’s one thing important about the above diagram. Dr. Hickey’s price (a.k.a salary) is higher than mine.  Yes, that’s what the diagram’s one-inch gap between Ryan’s price and Dr. Hickey’s price implies.

I may poke fun at Dr. Hickey’s academic knowledge of economic theory.  But alas, at the end of the day, I stare up enviously at his real-life economic position.

Posted on August 15th, 2008 by Ryan
Filed under: church, economic theory | 4 Comments »

My boss’ boss is a successful Silicon Valley start-up technologist, a self-described old-school hippie, and an outspoken derider of the free market.  He often complains about large corporations and capitalistic pigs.  We affectionately call him Dr. Hickey.

Last week, it was the football-weekend pricing of a South Bend hotel that prompted Dr. Hickey’s oft-used “greedy corporation” tirade.  On a typical weekend, a hotel room near Notre Dame costs about $150 per night.  But on a football home game weekend, the room price jumps to $350 per night.

Dr. Hickey pounced and declared (quite happily, I might add) the wrongness of this “price gouging”.  His soap-box monologue included colorful imagery that compared these “unscrupulous prices” to the squeezing of male umm… body parts.  Our resident MBA student tried to give the standard “prices should be whatever the market will bear” line.  But Dr. Hickey would not be deterred.

Football and Economics

A while after Dr. Hickey finished his diatribe, I decided — for some reason unbeknownst to myself — to explain to him why underpricing is bad.   I conjured up a story and even went so far as to draw an economic diagram.  Here’s my story:

Suppose you managed a 1,000 room hotel near the Notre Dame campus. After some pricing analysis, you figure out that $350/night is the “right” price.  This means you’re able to sell out your 1,000 rooms, with pretty much nobody on the waiting list.

However, if you priced your hotel rooms at $150 a night, you’d be inviting a huge pain in the butt.  Your hotel would be a “good deal”, and many more football fans — let’s say 3,000 altogether — would clamor for your hotel rooms.  You can only house 1,000 of them.  You’re left with two thousand obnoxious fans on a wait list, constantly pestering you.

I presented Dr. Hickey with the obvious choice: (A) make more money and fill up your hotel or (B) make less money AND have thousands of obnoxious football fans clamoring at your door.  I thought the answer was clear.  Choose (A).  Price at $350.  Q.E.D.

But Dr. Hickey was shaking his head.  He launched into another “greedy capitalist” speech.  I sighed.  Bleeding heart liberals — even successful Silicon Valley ones — can be so hard headed about economics.  It was time to try a different approach.

The Hickey Demand Function

Now Dr. Hickey has worked in Silicon Valley for many years and currently manages a sizable chunk of the company’s employees.  For his high level of responsibility, I’m sure he commands a fairly high compensation.  So I explained it in his terms.

I modified my earlier diagram.  Instead of selling hotel rooms, we’re selling Dr. Hickey’s services as a Silicon Valley employee. Dr. Hickey can only work one full-time job at a time.  I went along the X-axis, set Q=1 full-time job, followed up the red dotted line, and discovered that his price (a.k.a. his salary) is very high.

Dr. Hickey smiled when I pointed out his very high price.  He made no comments of price gouging.  Or about unscrupulous profiteering.

“If you were willing to work for half your salary, I’d bet hundreds of companies would eagerly to hire you,” I said.

“Probably,” Dr. Hickey said, “but I wouldn’t even talk to them.”  His smile became even more smug.

Yes. Even bleeding heart liberals understand economics… at least when it comes to their paychecks.

Posted on August 11th, 2008 by Ryan
Filed under: chasing happiness, diary worthy, economic theory | 7 Comments »

When I teach Sunday school, I often encourage the children to pray. I would explain that praying is just talking to God. I tell kids that you can pray to God about anything.

Grown-ups seem to have taken this childhood message to heart, especially Rocky Twyman, a community organizer from Maryland. This community organizer has been touring the country and organizing prayer meetings at local gas stations to ask God for lower gas prices.

Twyman has recently been in San Francisco, according to the SF Chronicle. He and his fellow pray-ers gathered at a Chevron station and pleaded “God, deliver us from these high gas prices”.

Whining at God

Maybe I need to refine my “you can pray to God about anything” statement. I still think it’s okay to encourage children to pray to God about their small concerns. After all, it’s cute when a little boy loses his teddy bear and prays that he finds his precious companion. And I’ve prayed for petty concerns myself. For example, I can begrudgingly admit to praying for a touchdown during a nail-biting Cal football game.

It’s different, though, when a group of people gather to pray. It ought to have some level of severity. At church, we regularly pray for life issues: marriages, babies, baptisms, illnesses, societal concerns, and global hunger to name a few. But gathering to pray for lower gas prices? Doesn’t that seem a bit like whining at God? (Besides, did any of them drive to this prayer meeting?)

Why Higher Gas Prices are Good

High fuel prices hurt the pocket book. I feel it too. But recent price increases force us to consider the wisdom of the oil-dependent lifestyles we’ve chosen.

Americans live a lavish lifestyle built upon heavy consumption of global resources. For years, we lived in blissful ignorance of this fact. We build huge houses, drive large cars, and endure long daily commutes. But if we think about it, the 50+ mile daily commute from the suburbs and exurbs is downright absurd. Sitting in the car for hours is unhealthy and unpleasant. It’s polluting; it’s wasteful; and it’s widespread.

If fuel prices continue to stay high — which I hope it does — people are likely to move closer to work and find themselves happier. Recent happiness studies indicate that commuting is among the top daily activities that makes people less happy. It’s strange that misery won’t make people commute less.

If you’re going to pray to God, don’t waste your breath complaining to Him about fuel costs. Pray instead, “God, deliver us from our own absurd fossil-fuel-dependent lifestyle.”

Posted on August 1st, 2008 by Ryan
Filed under: Christian tradition, chasing happiness, relationships (and money), societal concerns | 3 Comments »