Proven Ways to Overcome Financial Hardship

There is one thing business owners fear the most: when the cost of making a profit becomes increasingly expensive.

When this happens, producers of goods and services think twice before raising their prices, especially for non-essential products. They fully understand that “the customer is king.” No matter how aggressive a company’s promotions may be, the final decision to buy still lies in the hands of consumers, and no one can interfere with personal preference.

But that was in the past. Today, producers have many ways to persuade consumers to submit to their desires and spend money. Some slash prices as low as possible, often at the expense of quality. Others use promotional tactics that openly invade customer privacy, such as unsolicited phone calls and text messages. These methods may increase sales, but usually only in the short term.

In the long run, frustration grows among established producers who have long sold their products at higher prices. They not only lose customers, but also face the threat of collapse, or have already gone out of business, because they refuse to lower their standards simply to attract buyers. On the other side, producers who dare to set extremely low prices do not automatically become winners either, even if their sales statistics appear impressive. Why is that?

Once again, the culprit is rising production costs. The harder they try to “run away” from this “monster,” the closer it comes, waving its claws at them. This is hardly surprising, because human beings everywhere are part of communities, whether on the scale of a neighborhood or the United Nations.

It is a mistake to believe that we can remain safe and prosperous according to our own plans and desires while the people around us are unable to experience the same. 

Illustration: Pentungansari, Malang.

An Apology to Nature

From the perspective of modern civilization, nature is alive, but much like artificial intelligence, it is believed to have neither feelings nor the ability to think. Humanity is seen as having authority over it, because only humans are considered capable of assigning value and meaning to existence according to their own systems of exchange. 

Weather can be manipulated, artificial sunlight can be created, and meat and vegetables can now be produced in laboratories. If the long-term goals of these technological advances are truly positive, our quality of life should improve significantly. The natural world around us should no longer suffer destruction, because technology is now advanced enough to create food sources without exploiting nature or relying on vast plantations and farms that consume enormous resources.

Followers of the Indigenous Siberian Faith believe that trees and hunted animals are not merely living beings, but also possess spirits like humans, capable of experiencing suffering and happiness. According to these teachings, people should maintain humility when making use of nature in order to restrain greed, which ultimately harms humanity itself. 

This humility is symbolized through offerings made to the forest before cutting a branch from a tree or butchering hunted animals. The offerings are presented while expressing apologies for intentionally taking the lives of animals and trees in order to fulfill human needs.

As a result, members of Siberian tribal communities tend to think carefully before hunting or cutting down trees, considering the lengthy rituals they must observe. Because of this, they generally avoid excessive consumption and allow trees time to grow while ensuring hunted animals have reached maturity before being taken.

Caring for the Environment to Sustain Prosperity

We all hope that the spiritual practices we follow will bring miracles into our lives, that a light will descend and provide answers to every problem we face. One issue in particular has become increasingly common today: financial hardship. However, ancestral teachings should not be practiced merely as tools to achieve wealth, because their true essence lies in preserving harmony between humanity and the world around it.

We may laugh at the beliefs of the Indigenous Siberian faith, even though many of us have already witnessed floods and the extinction of certain animal species caused by excessive exploitation. Yet we can only dismiss such teachings if the foundations of our own way of life are genuinely more capable of bringing prosperity to humanity and to nature itself, when our behavior no longer threatens the very sources of life we depend on. (dswas).