Why is it so easy to take the people, places and things in our lives for granted?  We get comfortable with the old and familiar. We get lazy and unconscious and begin to feel entitled to what we have rather than grateful as we would be for a gift.

With all the collective emphasis on the Law of Attraction and manifestation techniques, there is the risk of putting too much attention on what what we want or what is missing from our lives rather than on appreciating what we have.  With our economy in crisis, it is illuminating so many things that we falsely assumed were permanent fixtures of life, barely realizing their fragile roots or that their very existence was based on a mass agreed-upon illusion.

As the John Lennon lyric so aptly states, “You don’t know what you got, until you lose it,” we are waking up to our own blindness to the incredible privileges that have graced our lives: work, housing, food, clean water, material goods aplenty, a multitude of entertainment choices…the list goes on. Suddenly, these aspects of life that we assumed were a given, are now threatened, and oh how much more precious they seem! Suddenly, our lives are not so much about what we don’t have, but rather being grateful for what we do have.

The restlessness and incessant need for more lessens when we shift our perspective even slightly and see the value in choosing what we have. It is as if a veil has come down and America has been caught with its collective pants down. No longer can we deny that people on this planet are living unsustainable lives under intolerable conditions. This awareness is now bumping up against our formerly sheltered and buffered lives. No longer can we pretend that we have transcended our humanity. We, too, are facing issues connected with our survival and there is no where to escape that reality.

In this context, the self-help movement with its promises of salvation and material wealth, seems a bit shallow. We cannot survive this major evolutionary shift by continuing to support the every man out for himself mentality.

That chapter of our story is over.

There is no denying now that we need each other to survive. We have to come together to share resources, not accumulate them, to share knowledge freely, not turn it into another product to sell, to cooperate, not compete.

The spiritual naturally becomes political when it involves the survival of our planet. Hiding on a mountaintop is no longer an option for anyone who considers him- or herself a member of a global community. Yes, we still need to meditate and we still need to practice principles of conscious living, but we also need to take action. We can no longer afford to be spectators in this game of life. We are being called our to take ownership of our lives and accountability for the lives of everyone on the planet.

Choosing what you have, sharing what you know, and being who you are with all of your wisdom and skills are some of the first steps in this process. Just the simple act of opening up your life to the bigger picture will shift things in miraculous ways.

Human beings are tribal in nature, always have been, always will be. We need each other. Even our natural affinity with online social networks reveals this. The post WWII model of nuclear family life is outdated and unsustainable. It is a model of excess, draining resources and creating waste. Our planet and our economy will no longer support that lifestyle. Instead, we will be forced (since most of us didn’t volunteer) to live more cooperatively in relationships and networks of interdependence. Bartering will replace monetary exchange as people look for more creative ways to purchase what they need. Sharing big ticket items among a group of families will make them more affordable and accessible. Gardening, public transportation, free local entertainment will replace their higher cost alternatives.

None of us knows how far down the rabbit hole we have to go to learn these lessons, but go we must, the window to turn things around already past. In the meantime, look at what you have and see it for all it’s preciousness, because tomorrow it may be gone.