I have a friend who lives in a building that has a heating system that only works for two hours at a time. That is, he can set his temp up to 72 degrees but it will only work for two hours. After that he has to set it for another 2 hours. They don’t charge him for the heat, but he hates the system.

Sometimes I wonder if our economy could be like that. It moves in small spurts of activity. I wonder if instead of having the ability to buy things all day, it would help focus us to only be able to spend money for 2 hours a day. That is, businesses would only accept money for that period of time. They could continue to work and do everything else, but if you missed that time period, you wouldn’t get services that day.

Why should we do this? I think that having the temptation to spend money is too difficult for people. If I knew that I could only spend money from lets say, 10 to noon each day I would focus and plan for the things that I needed that day. I don’t think we would do impulse shopping like we do now. I think that often christmas is an excuse to spend money we don’t have to impress people we don’t love, for reasons that are unclear to everyone. No I’m not a grinch, I’ve just seen firsthand that the best gifts are not material but emotional, spiritual and intellectual.

Maybe what the country needs is not a good five cent cigar, but a good 95% focus on being rather than doing.