As you would have ready earlier in my blog I am fascinated by the ways of my Grandmother who is now a healthy 100 year old. I believe that we have lost many of the good things about this style of living.
I am not saying that it would be nice to go back to having no electricity and no running water but I think we can implement many of the ideas and philosophies from that time to benefit our modern lives.
One thing about the old ways that I love is the
entrepreneurial spirit.
That is, the ability of people to create their own incomes. I am certain that it wold not have been viewed in such a romantic light back then, it was more a case of survival.
If you wanted to eat then you needed to either grow it yourself or make some money doing something in order to buy your food.
There were no credit cards. If you didn't have the money then you didn't buy the goods. I often think that if it wasn't for credit cards and redrawing on mortgages we would be living almost like the Great Depression days.
How would you go if you got your weekly income out of the bank, held it in cash and new that it was all you had to sustain you for the week, or new that you had to actually save some of it to buy more expensive things?
In times gone by people created their own money without a job as such. Lots of people worked for themselves - the old idea of the butcher, baker, candlestick maker. My Grandmother worked hard to
save money when it came in from selling wheat and wool. She also
made money through extra things like selling eggs and turkeys.
Have we lost our
Entrepreneurial Spirit ? Would we be brave enough to sell our services or goods for money ?
Would we be brave enough to know that if we worked hard we would make more money but if we were lazy we would make less?
Something worth thinking about.