A NEW WORLD: AN OLD REMEDY

A NEW WORLD: AN OLD REMEDY


In 1937 Napoleon Hill published his now famous book, ‘Think and Grow Rich.’ This book was published and sold in the midst of the Great Depression, which spanned ten years from 1929 to 1939. Think and Grow Rich took 25 years to complete as its author studied and interviewed over 500 of the world’s most successful people of its time. As a result, Think and Grow Rich, has been and continues to be a best seller of all times, selling 30 million copies. It is the first of its genre in “personal-success” literature during an era, which launched North America, Europe, and other industrialized nations into an economic slump of such magnitude that by 1933 11,000 of the U.S. 25,000 banks had failed, and massive unemployment continued to rise. In our present recession, it seems America and the world has revisited the past. Perhaps, it is also time to revisit this landmark book and gain insights, once again, to how all of us young and old, rich and poor, black, white, Asian, etc. can contribute to and gain from the current economic crisis personally and financially.
October 29, 1929 (Black Tuesday) the stock market collapsed. In a single day 16 million shares traded and 30 billion dollars simply vanished. Unemployment continued to drop for three years until 1932.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President in 1932 and introduced major changes in the structure of the American economy by increasing government regulations, and instituting massive public works projects. By March of 1933 the nation is so desperate that Congress passes the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 to stabilize banking industry by backing it with the federal government.
During this same time while the world and especially America battled the Great Depression, Mother Nature voiced her opinion on the greed and politics of man. In 1931 severe drought hit Midwestern and southern plains; crops die, dust blows everywhere. By 1932 dust storms increase and America is gripped by what becomes known as the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl area spreads covering more than 75% of the country, affecting 27 states where men, women, children must cover their faces with rags and their windows with wet sheets in an effort to not breathe in the raging dust. Mother Nature continues this rampage until the end of the Depression in 1939 when during the fall rains finally come down bringing an end to the great drought. Along with it comes WW II, and an end to the Great Depression when unemployment improved as American factories flooded with overseas orders for armaments and munitions. When will we learn and therefore apply the golden rule: Man and his environment are one.
What did we learn from all of this? Is war the only solution to peace and harmony, to countries, economies, individuals working together for themselves and others? In his second inaugural address of 1937, F. D. Roosevelt states: “I see one-third of the nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished…. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.” Did we?
The exact date of our current recession is still debated. Most believe it began in 2007 with the presidency of George W. Bush, escalated into the wall-street meltdown of 2008, and being cleaned up by the 2009 presidency of Barack Obama.
In today’s bleak circumstances where we verge on the precipice of a Great Recession, our current president, Barack Obama makes the following statements on March 27, 2009, at his first online “Open for Questions” Town hall: “I’ve been working… to ensure that we’re not only making it through this crisis, but come out on the other side stronger and more prosperous as a nation over the long term.” Will we? How do those of us facing a “come-back,” begin all over again? How do we convert our dreams and ideas into money and see ourselves prospering as Obama and Hill states is possible? Perhaps Napoleon Hill has the answer in Think and Grow Rich where he predicts: “The business depression of the Great Depression marked the death of one age and the birth of another. This changed world requires practical dreamers who can and will put their dreams into action. The practical dreamers have always been, and always will be the pattern-makers of civilization.”
Is this who we are, the “pattern-makers of civilization?” The world as Obama asks needs each and every one of us to do our part in restoring America and our own lives to the greatness and prosperity we deserve. Are we all, including Obama, the first black man to run for the presidency and win, “practical dreamers” capable of rising to the challenges of Obama and Hill in a time when past and present have collided, and our future depends on us? “We must catch the spirit of the great pioneers of the past,” says Hill, and become pioneers of the present and future.
Let us again exam Numerology’s number definitions as I did in my article, ‘Obama and the Spirits of History,’ against the dates and events of this article:
The recession years of 2007 = 9, 2008 = 10, and 2009 = 11=2. Nine means Completion (Bush’s time almost up, wall street and big businesses, home mortgage crisis, banks collapsing, completing their cycle of misuse and abuse). Ten means Rebirth (out with the old in with the new everything). And, 2 means Balance, Union, Receptive, Yin (isn’t this what we believe Obama brings to the White House, to all individuals, to these issues).
October 29, 1929 – adds up to the #8, which means power and sacrifice. Is that not what occurred for men and women everywhere in the overwhelming power of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Homes were sacrificed as people were uprooted and migrated like flocks of wild birds to unknown lands. This era of sacrifice and power lasted ten years. The number 10 as previously stated means Rebirth. America and the world had an opportunity to start again. To get it right. The depression improved in 1939 due to WW II orders. The number 1939 adds up to 4, which means Creation. It is a time to create and to restore the world. Yet, this comes on the wages of a world war, of the creation of weapons of destruction. Was this a cleansing so we could begin anew? By 1941 America enters WW II and the depression is officially over. 1941 adds up to 6 which means Reaction (which Americans did by entering the war), Flux (where the entire world stood and the war created), and Responsibility (of each and every one of us for the past depression, the present war, the future of our world).
Napoleon Hill states: “Depression began to fade into nothingness…as the spell of fear in the minds of the people gradually fade away and become Faith.” His book encourages us to Think, use our minds to create and prosper, gives step-by-step guidance both within and without. He request we, “Take courage, for these experiences have tempered the spiritual metal of which you are made—they are assets of incomparable value.”
Think and Grow Rich is much more than a How-To book. It is the book, which launched all other self-help lectures, books, programs such as Tony Robbins, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Secret, etc. Within its pages are the necessary steps that each of us can take to get back and move forward, to reclaim and remake our lives. So, perhaps this new world we are once again forging can be helped by an old story, a lasting remedy that works and survives no matter what the times. Because as Obama continues to state in his online Town hall Meeting, “We, as a nation have already begun the critical work that will lead to our economic recovery. A recovery measured by whether jobs are being created and families have more money to pay their bills…. in the end it’s a recovery measured by whether it lasts, whether it endures; … whether we build our economy on a solid foundation.”