Never run out of bullets

What is this violent, military maxim doing on a blog about healing philosophy, you ask? Bear with me and I shall tell you. It begins with this quote from an article at the Motley Fool, 8 October 2008 (read full article here):

A gaggle of global central bankers joined forces this morning, simultaneously cutting interest rates in a worldwide showing of economic force not seen since 9/11… in what amounts to a desperate attempt to get financial markets to stop hemorrhaging. Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank all followed suit. Japan would have loved to join the party, but it's been on the rate-cut bandwagon for years. With its rate already at a dismal 0.5%, Japan ran out of bullets a long time ago.

This made me laugh. Although the subject is very serious, I loved Morgan Housel’s colourful analogy. A sense of humour is a great asset and ‘weapon’ when we are going through a bad patch. And it got me thinking. Those Japanese central bankers are not the only ones caught without any bullets at a time when they need them. If you are like me and wish you had prudently laid aside some cash going into this crisis, like Warren Buffet, so you could do some fire-sale shopping, then you know how it feels to have no bullets.
The concept could be applied to many aspects of our lives. If you are burning the candle at both ends in your career, to the detriment of your health and vitality, you are like John Wayne blazing away willy nilly with two machine guns. You will be out of bullets before long. Better to find some cover, stay cool and make those bullets count.
When we are going through hard times in other ways, we may feel as though we have no bullets left. That is when we can turn to philosophy and lift our minds. In this very blog you will find bullets and magazines lying around everywhere. You will find books and people and links to whole ammunition dumps full of bullets of all kinds. You need never run out of bullets again. Not like those poor Japanese central bankers.

Photo by Fernando Weberich