Skills trades, thrift store shopping, freecycle, recycle.... I tell you, it's the way forward

I just think it's the way the world should work. It's the way it used to work before corruption, and the way it still works in some cultures. Trading skills and services is the way forward (seems that all the ways forward are also ways back to a better time).

I am a member of Skillshare Network, a local branch of a nationwide, nay, worldwide Skills Trade Organisation. In my local network we have 100+ members, offering a range of services and skills. For each hour given, a member earns one Time Dollar. That time can then be 'spent' with any of the other members, for any offered service. Members can earn hours by helping the network (publicity, outreach, distributing fliers, office duties etc) and can also earn a time dollar for each hour of volunteer work they do in the community at large.

I offer Bowen work. Over the years I have received legal advice, healing work, computer advice, time spent in a cabin in the mountains, had my dvd player fixed, had someone help me to clean a friends house, and today I am inspired to write this because I received a wonderful acupuncture treatment. None of this I would have been able to afford to pay real money for, but that is not the reason I love it so much. I meet wonderful, like-minded people, who are willing and excited to share their skills and connect with their community, and that includes people who do have enough money to buy these services. What is so wonderful is that no-ones time is worth more than anyone elses. The lawyer gets one time dollar for his legal advice, the woman with a truck receives one time dollar for her help transporting a large item from one end of town to the other, the person who knows about computers gets one time dollar for his one hour spent explaining to me over the phone how to move my documents from one computer to another. (How many lawyers have you met who would do this? I once tried to explain the concept to a colleague who was interested in joining. She was a student of graphic design. In the end she didn't want to join because her time was worth $200 an hour so she couldn't reconcile that with what she would receive in return. This is our current mentality as a society, and one that I don't believe serves us well)

Outside of skillshare I have come to love informal trades with anyone I meet who is up for it. I have traded Bowen work for childcare, more Bowen work, massage, coffee shop vouchers, personal Pilate's sessions, private Tai Chi classes, Bob Dylan tickets...!

I don't have much money, but even if I ever do, I still want to live this way, in fact I just want to live this way more and more. And really, there is nothing stopping us because here is something we can really all do at grassroots. There are some things we will still have to pay money for, and those will be the things that are governed by corruption (first example that comes to mind, gas..). But in large part, I believe that with just a small shift in awareness of what is possible and a shift away from our consumer society where monetary value is equated with personal value, we could all be creating communities that support us and nourish us instead of separating and lining the pockets of corporations. That separation from the whole, that 'independence' which allows us to spend our money without dependence on individuals in our community, comes at great cost to our true independence, our freedom to live consciously and in harmony with those around us.