What Do Your Words And Spending Habits Say About You?

A couple of weeks ago at the 8th grade youth group session where I volunteer weekly, we talked about gossip which got the kids thinking about how we use our words. One girl even questioned, "So if we can't talk about each other then what will we have to talk about? The weather?!" It's interesting that at 13 kids don't even know what to talk about besides the goings on of their peers. Granted, they're teenagers but how many coworkers do you know that all they do is talk about everyone elses' business. Then last night we talked about social justice and it really got me thinking about how we use our money to support companies. Especially in a downturned economy, how we use our dollars, in the same way we use our words, is also a reflection of what we value.

Today when I read Scott Hepburn's post questioning how conversational Twitter really is it brought to mind some of these same thoughts. He puts a disclaimer on it saying the research isn't extensive but he's got some really good questions on how much of our involvement in social media really IS conversational and how much of it is just trying to tell people about ourselves?

As sort of an experiment, I created a Wordle image of my Twitter RSS feed. It's a cool little feature that creates a tag cloud of your conversations. (The more you use a certain word the larger the font will be in the image.) I love this little tool because it almost creates artwork out of our very own words. So here's what my Twitter updates look like:
I was kind of proud to see so man @ usernames in my cloud. I guess to me that says I respond to people more than most things. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean that my conversing with people is necessarily of value to everyone or even anyone but it's still interesting Then I thought about my blog, which I have been somewhat neglecting the last few months. But I wanted to see what kind of things I've talked about here and this is what the Riveting Rosie blog looks like:

Things that stand out "love," "live," "people," "work," "just," and "purpose". It's kind of cool way to put into perspective what you write about and what it is that I'm publishing. I think in this case, these things are a pretty good reflection of what is important to me. Of course it's not really the end-all-be-all of what interests me but it's again, just interesting to think about and reflect upon.

Then moving onto how we use our money: Justin Ritchie has an awesome post called Exploring the Ramifications of a Shorter Week that touches on this idea. I just love this quote from his post:

Because our time is so limited we have to ensure that the way our money is spent truly allows us to build the life we desire. Yet, the life we desire has no fundamental need to exceed our income. We can seek to communally share expensive items among groups of friends while changing lifestyle choices to reduce our dependence on purchased items or monthly fees. Sure, my smartphone has a cool touchscreen and it can take pictures but I’ve found the functionality superfluous, it dosen’t support my life goals. After my contract ends I’ll be retreating to a less expensive solution. I have the income to support a parking space downtown but I would rather ride the bus because it is a viable alternative (even though a slightly less convenient one). But often when we make less financially independent decisions we must rely on others and in that reliance we gain a relationship of equal exchanges for a greater goal.

Americans are known for living beyond their means. It's been engrained in our culture with how much credit card debt most of us are in and the constant advertising of the latest and greatest gadget... I think it's great insight to think beyond the here and now and look towards a larger goal. To really look at the quality of our interactions and the use of our words and our finances and figuring out how that is reaching our goals.

One area that I really want to work on is supporting local food and companies. I am terrible about going to major chain restaurants, grocery stores and other companies. Granted, when I'm strapped for cash sometimes this is the best option for my budget. But if I made more conscious effort to change my spending habits like Justin's example above, maybe I'd have more room to actually achieve that goal. So it's good things to think about, reflect upon and figure out how to put into action.

What do you value? How are you portraying that in your words? In what companies you support with your money?