Five thoughts, ideas, insights, or quotes to power up your mind to think differently and creatively about life and who we are. Put all previous thinking away and open up a brand new world of the Supermind. YOUR SuperMind.
This week – Debt.
It’s a money world today. Make no mistake about it. Look around. Everywhere you turn money shows itself. But that becomes an addictive attraction to us humans. If we haven’t naturally go it, we spend it to pretend we have and to show off to others. With life defined by social media these days, individual self image drives human behaviour. See and be seen. But, that means spend and be spending. The end result? A few more online followers but a heap of debt. And in 2026 we are in debt more than ever before. SMS delves in and asks whether debt is a good thing…..or not!
1. What are we paying for?
The average non-mortgage debt per adult in the UK in 2024 was £6300 each. In the USA the average total consumer arrears in mid-2025 was $104,755. In both countries and countless others the debt-to-income ratio is increasing to scary levels. As for the UK, in the latter part of 2025 that figure was 116.9%. Or nearly 20% ABOVE what earnings are. We owe far more than we bring in money wise. Costs have increased over the years but debt has spiralled at a faster rate.
What are we paying for? What is causing us to truly be in debt beyond what we can afford?
2. Priority Pounds and Dollars.
At the turn of the Century most people’s priority spending was household related bills, clothing and footwear, social entertainment, and a small number of holiday costs. Today those priorities have clearly changed. Expensive brand new or fast cars clog the roads. Bigger and better homes are sought out. Trips and vacations are now multi times a year and now to far flung places. We socialise all the time, wear the best designer gear, and seem rarely at home to save some finances.
Why has our priority spending changed and why do we feel we have to do it?
3. We didn’t do debt….now we do.
Being in deficit used to be a stigma. A kind of social failing that we were horrified anyone finding out about. Not today, no way. It’s a normalised factor of being alive. Once the credit gates swung open at the end of the last Century, debt is as everyday as profit. We no longer blink at having liabilities we owe or taking them on. We have changed in relation to this aspect of money management. Therefore…
Do we need to rethink our relationship with debt being OK?What mentality should we develop?
4. Slaves to the system?
Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, ‘A man in debt is so far a slave’. He could well be right. Debt keeps us firmly part of the system. It keeps us working and striving to generate the income to pay down the debt. In some cases due to interest, that debt accumulates meaning again working more and more to cover the growing financial burden. It’s a merry go round that’s far from merry that many can’t get off. They were given (loaned/advanced) to help out that has so much extra added to it, they have to pay to the masters who owned the original funds.
Are we slaves to the financial system? Are we merely working to keep others in wealth while we have debt?
5. Who does everyone owe?
Historically if we had a debt it was to a bank or financial institution. Low level stuff to purchase a used car, update the bathroom, or buy a small starter home. Nowadays we seek advances for absolutely anything – from our weekly salary to money for once in a lifetime trips that are now once a year or less. But, this is and always has been consumer debt. Individual members of the public. Not any more. Today it is complete countries that are in debt. The world can’t all be owing each other. Which leaves this bigger question…
Who is behind the mass creation of debt, and how can we stop them and this?
Ok, that’s another SuperMind Saturday done. Thank you for being here for the SuperMind time. Keep thinking about these and other issues raised on here on SMS. We need more minds thinking about this issue and the others issue on SuperMind Saturdays. Why? Because it’s needed. Because the world requires new thoughts and ideas. Ones from people like you!!
See you next time for more super thinking.
References – UK Parliament – researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7584/CBP-7584.pdf.
Five thoughts, ideas, insights, or quotes to power up your mind to think differently and creatively about life and who we are. Put all previous thinking away and open up a brand new world of the Supermind. YOUR SuperMind.
This week – Celebrities.
You can’t move these days without hearing the term celebrity. It seems people who do anything small or were once on a TV show are classed as celebrities. So much has this sub industry exploded it even has it’s own name….Celebrity Culture. As we can’t get away from celebrities then, SMS takes a good look by asking questions about them and their existence in our lives.
1. What does celebrity mean?
Let’s cut to the chase and start big. The label ‘Celebrity’ appears to be attached to virtually anyone these days and not for something momentous or record breaking. Typically until social media arrived a celebrity was a world figure at the very top – THE best actor/actress in the world, a person famous in history, etc. Not anymore. It truly has been dropped many levels. The dictionary definition of a celebrity is ‘The state or fact of being well known, widely discussed, or publicly esteemed’ Which leads to the first question….
Consequently, are current celebrities truly ‘well known’ or simply promoted as that so they will be?
2. Dumbing down or lifting up?
Modern society has been accused of being a cotton wool one. Particularly that every tiny risk or effort or activity is prevented due to worry over minor hurt or damage. The phrase attached to this is ‘dumbing down’. The ‘fall’ of society to this effect has been matched by the rise in numbers of so called celebrities. We used to be as tough as nails as people and celebrity was for the very few. Now we are soft as tissues and celebrity is for the many. Which begs the question…
Are we dumbing down celebrities and their hard endeavours to get there, or elevating ordinary people to think better of themselves?
3. Setting the wrong standards?
Historically celebrities were good for us. They were a small band of pinnacle people at the peak of certain professions. The very best of the very best. World beaters and world winners. They were figures to look up to, to admire, to be in awe of. People who had started like one of us and tirelessly and diligently fought and struggled to get where they are. Presently I’m sure that can’t be said of the current crop of ‘celebrities’ overall, many only barely working for less than a decade and often far less. Celebrities before were standard bearers for never ending determination, persistence, and sheer hard work.
As it takes far less time or effort to be called a celebrity, does that set good or poor standards ? What are they??
4. How many celebrities?
Since the start of the 21st Century the media has been busy making more and more people celebrities. The figure goes up every single week. Truth is, celebrity status was confined to a small group. This protected the very ideal of an exalted person who had achieved something of an elevated nature. This inspired people of all ages. Times have most definitely changed. Celebrities exist across the board, supplied with the title for a fraction of the level or results past celebrities reached. Where there were a handful, now it’s chocked full.
Do we need so many celebrities? Why do we require that many at all?
5. Finally, is it all real anyway?
French musician and record producer, Thomas Bangalter observed this about celebrity, ‘Usually the…celebrity lifestyle can disconnect people from reality’. Perhaps he has spotted something others never have. This whole celebrity thing is merely a bubble that people want to live in with lots of nice things, attention all the time, money to do what they want……and mainly to escape how hard real life is. A bubble life which protects them from the harsh struggles and mental pressures everyone goes through to live.
Is being a celebrity nowadays just a desire to escape from reality?
Ok, that’s another SuperMind Saturday done. Thank you for being here for the SuperMind time. Keep thinking about these. We need more minds thinking about this issue and the others issue on SuperMind Saturdays. Why? Because it’s needed. Because the world requires new thoughts and ideas. Ones from people like you!!
See you next time for more super thinking.
References – Oxford English Dictionary – Celebrity.
Photo attribution – Free to use under Pixabay Content License by OmarMedinaFilms.
It’s a special time of loving and giving, caring and sharing, family and friends, food and fun. Work stops and we get to rest and enjoy quality time with each other, often seeing people we haven’t for a while.
But the really special part of Christmas isn’t happening in the heart.
It’s occurring in the mind.
And for the mind, that can be absolute magic.
Come with me into the Christmas mind and experience it.
Do you hear what I hear?
Now that’s another famous line from a Christmas song (by Bing Crosby).
A line then followed by, ‘Do you see what I see’?
This typifies someone already sensing the magic and spirit of Christmas. A mind alive with possibility, with good imagination, with seeing and feeling and believing in positive expectation. For them they have nothing but great thoughts and happy emotions about what is about to unfold over the coming couple of weeks.
Not so most of us.
We fear everything going pear shaped.Horrors fill our head.
Family will be each other’s throats. Someone will be unhappy with their present or plain underwhelmed with what they were bought. The food won’t turn out right – the turkey all dry, the veg has been under or over cooked, fussy eaters turn their nose up at their plate. Add to that everyone gets sozzled, the party games become competitive, and guests outstay their welcome.
Oh the joys of Yuletide.
You see Christmas is a micro version of the rest of the year. We imagine issue after issue and act accordingly. We give no possibility for lovely surprises actually taking place. For family or food problems at Christmas, we continue on into the year making it work colleagues or the weather that represents our expected nightmare.
Christmas is the rest of the year shrunk into two weeks.
Merry Mindsets.
Christmas is more about the mindset than anything else.
Yes we give, and appreciate, and love, but only because we let our mind see and feel these in the first place. We awaken magic in our mind that we then use to light up other people’s lives, and our own as a result inside.
Before we buy a gift we have the vision of the person receiving it and their happy face beaming with the wonderful emotions it makes them feel. We activate a perceived future and make it real in living colour. We access key areas of our mind to fire up our creative field that we project onto the screen of our imagination like a Christmas tree light switch on. And we then go do day after day what is required to bring that into actual reality i.e. find those presents.
Now, we can do this any day of the week or time of the year. It’s not season or Santa dependent.
What we haven’t noticed is that it’s quicker to come true in our lives at Xmas.
You imagine Xmas morning and your loved ones smiling and joyous at what you presented them. You then use that believed outcome and found the gift to match that picture. Time from seeing it in your mind to it coming perfectly true? A few weeks to even a couple of days.
To you that’s Christmas magic only. In normal life that magic won’t or can’t work.
But, that magic is in your mind permanently and can work anytime you allow it to cast its spell.
Magic is real.
Magic isn’t some supernatural invisible energy.
It’s a real living power in your mind. A power you can use whether it’s a Spring day or Autumn evening as much as a Christmas season potion.
Christmas shows what can be created in no time by the mind can be formed with good time in the very same way.
Take out the vision of your family and their wish appearing on December 25th, and in its place add YOUR vision for what you wish coming to you in your life instead with the same sure faith and expected conclusion.
Remove it being a Christmas gift delivered for others, and make it a personal fulfilment brought to you sometime soon. BOTH envisioned, felt, acted upon, and made real by you. YOU and your mind are the magic that sees and delivers. The Santa for others and yourself.
In the film The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy tells Glinda, The Good Witch of The West that she wishes to go back home to Kansas. Glinda reminds her, ‘You have always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself’.
And so do you my good friend reading this.
You have always had magic in your mind. Christmas helps you learn this.
Use your magic mind.
Christmas will soon be over, but the magic continues.
The key is to use that magic in your mind on an ongoing basis.
Start having more ideas – bigger ideas, ideas for yourself, business ideas, ideas for products, ideas of how you wish to live and who to be. They are like your family’s wish list for Christmas you went looking for. Now do the same for yourself and your future.
Hold the vision together with all the excited emotions that will happen when it all comes about.
THEY ARE MAGNETIC.
They pull it all together, the glue to the big plans. And they powerfully fuse it into your whole psyche so that you carry it with you day and night. Every single day you think about your wish. See it, lock into it, follow it. Just like you couldn’t let go of finding that doll or trainers for your kids.
Then keep taking action to get closer (like searching the internet or visiting store after store in December to get those wanted gifts – oh, yes, you couldn’t let go!!). Take some steps every day or week to get to that present. The gift to yourself for every day of every year to come. Be Santa for yourself.
Make the magic come to life.
Through using the magic of your mind that you always had.
Five thoughts, ideas, insights, or quotes to power up your mind to think differently and creatively about life and who we are. Put all previous thinking away and open up a brand new world of the Supermind. YOUR SuperMind.
This week – Standards and Values.
Times change. Society alters. Life moves on and never stands still. But despite this somethings need to remain to hold us up or humanity will fall apart. We require strong foundations to build our world and futures on. One flag bearer that has served us well for many years are standards and values. Decent behaviours, attitudes, and personal actions that ensure we are civilised. Are these still present today? Or have they begun to disappear? SuperMind Saturday decides it’s time to get involved.
1. Are we paying a price?
NFL Head Coach Mike Tomlin said, ‘You can’t put a price on standards and legacy’. A noble quote and observation. This has held true for many many years in life. But, in today’s world it seems less so. The price a growing number of people are happy to pay to let go of previous high standards is money and/or recognition. Being a someone is more important than being a good one.
Do standards and values have a price and, if so, is it worth paying to lose them?
2. Do we even know what they are?
If you were to ask your family and friends what counts as good standards and values, would most of them agree? Or would they even know what that means. Overall we link morals and ethics and levels of behaviour and language to standards and values as the core definitions. But in the modern ‘go-get-what-you-can-for-yourself’ mentality society could well be divided what makes up S +V’s. Or that we even need most of them at all.
If standards and values became a key element of life again, how would we define what they should be?
3. It starts with you and me.
We can talk about standards and values of the world for a lifetime. How they have changed or disappeared and when we have seen or experienced it ourselves. And even cite examples of the type of people who typify the loss of manners and respect. Maybe though, that’s the start of the problem in the first place. We are fast to point the finger at everyone else, but we should look a little closer to home. Look at ourselves as individuals to ensure we aren’t being the same as the people we accuse.
How often do we ask ourselves whether we are personally living by the right standards and values?
4. Selfish or Self Promotion.
It’s a crowded world out there. From the streets to the roads. And from getting a job to keeping a job. Or from making it big to making enough to survive. From online to offline. The world is fuller than ever. This means there is always someone more skilful, popular, well informed, attractive, successful, wealthy, and powerful than you. If you don’t want to be left behind you have to stand out in some way. You can’t stand on ceremony. If you don’t push yourself forwards someone (or lots of others) certainly will. That used to be seen as selfish. Today that could be viewed as sensible self promotion.
Are we selfish to be first, best, or prominent or is self promotion the only way to act on this packed planet?
5. Who do we look up to?
Perhaps there is one area where the greatest shift has occurred. Historically we looked to our leaders and statesmen for our direction on standards and values. They led the way in how to operate at the best level as a human being. This has radically altered. Where we once completely trusted such people, today we feel the very opposite. Our parents also fit that bill as people to be examples to us. But with the advent of social media younger generations are less inclined to be parent and leader inspired and more celebrity so. Which begs the final, and potentially, most crucial question.
Who should we look up to for our standards and values today? Which of type of person, if any, is the perfect role model for most of us to follow?
Let me know your views or insights to these questions. Love to hear how you see and think it!
Ok, that’s another SuperMind Saturday done. Thank you for being here for the SuperMind time. Keep thinking about these. We need more minds thinking about this issue and the others issue on SuperMind Saturdays. Why? Because it’s needed. Because the world requires new thoughts and ideas. Ones from people like you!!
See you next time for more super thinking.
Photo attribution – free to use under Pixabay Content License by RingoStudio.
Five thoughts, ideas, insights, or quotes to power up your mind to think differently and creatively about life and who we are. Put all previous thinking away and open up a brand new world of the Supermind. YOUR SuperMind.
This week – Climate change.
Climate change is a hot topic on everyone’s lips these days. Opinions are highly divided. Some see the weather changes in recent decades as proof positive that it’s happening. Others see it as mere alterations in patterns over too small a period to truly declare a climate change. But, whatever the view, it’s a hugely important subject and that’s the type SuperMind Saturday likes. So, let the thoughts begin….
1. Climate Agreement.
Humankind is a race of people. A group, a clan, a tribe. We exist by agreeing to follow the consensus of the majority. This is how we survive, protect our numbers, and evolve. But, climate change has, well, changed all that. It’s not that the members of our group (you and me, everyday folks) can’t agree. It’s the authority figures – in this case the scientists, climatologists, and meteorologists that can’t agree on what defines climate change.
We need a metric, a data point, everyone can largely agree on that sways the argument one way or the other.
2. Everyone or no-one.
The next driving issue is that if climate change is a real and expanding threat to life on Earth, we need everyone to help tackle it. Any huge problem for a group will never be solved if only a few are active in dealing with it. This precisely mirrors the issue today. Huge countries like USA and India, the main creators of the pollution said to fuel the acceleration of climate change, won’t support changes to their practices. What hope is there of reversing the climate trend if only small, very low polluters are working towards it?
How do we encourage the main powers said to influence climate change to alter the way they operate, manufacture, and live?
3. Population v Nature.
Life has become an almost fine line between human population growth and nature. Whether or not there is climate change, the recent increases in wild weather has impacted more people than ever. This is because of increased building of homes and communities, businesses, and infrastructures in areas prone to natural disaster effects. From floods to fires, earthquakes to tornadoes, an increasing percentage of people are caught in the full force of mother nature’s extremes.
Is it time to ban construction in such areas to save lives and their cost or even limit population growth to a managed level?
4. What else could it be?
Humanity seeks knowledge. It seeks understanding. And it seeks questions to do that. The prevailing thought about climate change is that our industrial activities over the last few hundred years has sparked this crisis. That and our creation and use of polluting cars, fossil fuels, air conditioning, and products like aerosols to name but a few. Our minds are set on this being the chief reason, if not the complete reason. But, could there be other reasons still adding to the problem we’ve not considered – increase in sun spot emissions, mass food production, even space dust or Universal gases flooding our atmosphere.
Have we asked enough questions to ensure we know what is behind climate change. And if not, which ones are missing?
5. Time to plan for pain?
For the last few decades we have been debating the issue. Much data and evidence has been shared, many gathering of top powers, huge coverage has been dedicated by the media. But….and it’s a big but……all of this has been about slowing down and trying to reverse climate change. To prevent it getting worse still. However, we have made few inroads into the problem. It appears to be escalating. And so this begs the biggest question of all.
Should we now be planning for a worse case scenario outcome and what it would be like rather than preventing the unpreventable?
PLEASE share your views or responses to these questions, we the people can solve when we come together!!
Ok, that’s another SuperMind Saturday done. Thank you for being here for the SuperMind time. Keep thinking about these. We need more minds thinking about this issue and the others issue on SuperMind Saturdays. Why? Because it’s needed. Because the world requires new thoughts and ideas. Ones from people like you!!
See you next time for more super thinking.
Photo attributions – free to use under Pixabay Content License by Fifaliana-joy. and Ri_Ya.
Five thoughts, ideas, insights, or quotes to power up your mind to think differently and creatively about life and who we are. Put all previous thinking away and open up a brand new world of the Supermind. YOUR SuperMind.
This week – Homelessness.
Owning our own home is a major aim when we start adult life. A place to call home, somewhere we can call ours. Safety. Security. And, in the past, it’s a goal most people achieved. Today, not so. Since the Century began we have had to face the credit crunch crash, ongoing recessions and inflation, COVID, and the current cost of living and energy crisis.
Meaning the dream of having a home has impacted millions and homelessness has begun to appear everywhere. This is a scary fact and so SuperMind Saturday has to take a look and ask some BIG questions.
1. Affected not Disaffected.
Traditionally, homeless people in the past were those who were disaffected. Those who through some trauma or affliction like drink or drugs or family troubles, especially young people who ran away from home, became homeless. People who lived on the fringe of things. Typically called the drop outs. This is increasingly NOT the reason in modern times. Homelessness is hitting people of every background. All are being affected.
How do we change our historical view of the homeless so that we can begin to deal with the issue?
2. Home Owners now Home Owers.
In the UK alone the FCA expect over 200,000 households to fall behind with their mortgage this year due to rising interest rates. That and the increase in re-mortgages in the last 2 years plus the soaring cost of living. Some 88,000 mortgage payers were 2.5% in arrears of their mortgage balance by the Summer of 2025. The risk of homelessness is a spiralling financial threat affecting the whole country.
How can we protect people from losing their homes who are trying to simply pay bills? Could it be time for homeless protection insurance to be included in mortgage premiums? Or what ideas do you have?
3. Effects not Causes.
Modern day homelessness is clearly less an effect of some personal disfunction. It stems more so from the huge monetary pressures of life and the global issues. From the deregulation of banks to the soon to follow after credit lending collapse. From ongoing international conflicts to extensive crime and immigration costs. These events are the causes, one of the ultimate effects has been homelessness. Global scenarios creating national and even localised upheaval. We have become too global. We can no longer protect our own country or state area due to issues beyond our borders.
How do we stop this incessant march away from self contained sovereign control? Is the Terminator alive in this form???
4. Poverty for more people.
in 2024 over 320,000 people in the UK were pushed into poverty due to interest rises. This figure would rise sharply for larger countries. Multiple millions around the world have been added to the numbers classed as living in poverty. People who have full time jobs, sensible spending habits, and no previous historical record of being in debt. In other words – not from their own unwise behaviour. People who didn’t know poverty before, now know it well. More and more people being pulled into a life struggle every single day.
Is poverty something no longer cared about? Have we just become a world focussed on winning and success over standards of living for all? Are we losing our humanity?
5. Homelessness for All.
All of the above points and information point to two clear truths. People of all ages and types are being dragged into the risk of homelessness. From eight to eighty. The haves are becoming less, the have nots are becoming over subscribed. And the gap is also growing. To finish I’m just going to make a statement. One that is in plain sight and obvious if you take a look.
Governments (of any political party) don’t care about the growing homeless epidemic. They do their usual talking but seem to do less and less to help everyday people. They just seek to tax citizens in as many ways as possible. We need some Robin Hoods. The Sheriff of Nottingham has returned and wants more than before from the people.
** A rare personal point from me but this one had to be said. If you lead you have responsibility. Those that lead are not honouring theirs**
Go well all SuperMind friends.
Ok, that’s another SuperMind Saturday done. Thank you for being here for the SuperMind time. Keep thinking about these. We need more minds thinking about this issue and the others issue on SuperMind Saturdays. Why? Because it’s needed. Because the world requires new thoughts and ideas. Ones from people like you!!
