Sharing is Good - Beth Buczynski - Part 2

Sharing is Good - Beth Buczynski

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 126

  May 6, 2017 

Book 36 - Sharing is Good - How to Save Money, Time and Resources through Collaborative Consumption

Beth Buczynski (2013)
 Part 2 - pages 21-54
Reading Time - 1 hour

Now... even though sharing is part of our DNA... it doesn't come easily sometimes. Ask any 2-year old who is supposed to share their toys! Selfishness creeps in. We see sharing as cheating by those who don't work as hard as we do. Why should we share with them when we've worked so hard and they haven't!

There are a few other reasons why we are reluctant to share... we're too busy. The truth is... we don't really use our time efficiently... particularly if we spend 2-3 hours a day watching television.

Some people are reluctant to share because of safety concerns. Sharing means we have to be flexible and interact with our fellow human beings... some of whom might be strangers. We have a weird aversion to trusting each other. Caution is a good thing... but mistrust is bad.

The truth is... there are more and more of us than ever before and half of the 7 billion people on this planet live in poverty. We are consuming more and wasting more... and that is not sustainable. There's no way the earth can support 10 billion people who want to live the way we do. Which means... that maybe our individualistic, capitalistic, materialistic mentality is not the best example to follow. It's even kind of weird that more and more... we call ourselves "consumers" rather than "people" or "citizens".

We sometimes hear about the Green Economy... let's save the planet by buying eco-friendly stuff. But that is still consumerism! We need a radical new way of thinking. There are all sorts of different ways to share things: skill-shares, time-banks, cooperatives. The idea is to keep money, resources and talent in the community. When we share, instead of buy... we invest in each other. At the same time, waste is dramatically reduced and we extend the life cycle of physical goods. Particularly if we can get manufacturers away from the idea of planned obsolescence.  Make things that last and/or that are easy to repair and replace.

I keep thinking of credit unions and how the money that we invest in credit unions supports people in our local communities. They are an example of a cooperative... and it makes me think it's time to say good-bye to the Big Banks.