The Upside of the Economic Downturn
Anyone who’s still got shares in a 401K or, holy mackerel, a stock portfolio, is feeling like a battered bronco rider. Up! Down! Up! Down! Yikes! I am in California, in Silicon Valley, and we are just now starting to feel the belt-tightening. Talk of lay-offs is spreading. Life is feeling a little ominous right now. There’s a dark cloud on the horizon.
But, hey, to really take a trite analogy too far, we need the rain. An economic downturn will be painful, but it will also realign some of the values that lead to the craziness in the first place. Around here, there really was another gold rush, the dot com boom, and it stretched pretty far into the present. The myth lived on. Workers in Silicon Valley still believed in the IPO and the get-rich-quick buyouts that piled money onto small company founders. The myth was a reality until very recently, though the numbers of people cashing out was shrinking every year. I don’t like to see the entrepreneurship and the optimism go south because it’s the reason everyone in the world wants to live here (well, that and the weather!). But I welcome a return to more sensible living. Less Humvee, more Prius, you know? Friends and community and gardens will be all the rage. Dads and moms might make it home for dinner.
Here is a list of the things I WILL NOT MISS:
- The cell-phone hubris, loud talking arses bellowing out their self-importance in public areas.
- Twenty-four year old guys driving Lamborghinis.
- The children in my daughters’ classes saying, “We are SO RICH.” (Really, they say it.)
- Trophy wives who are pissed at the weekend nanny. “I had to cut my work-out short!”
Who wouldn’t love to be fabulously wealthy for a couple of years’ worth of hard work? Who wouldn’t love to retire at thirty-two? I don’t want to sound like the bitter un-rich. Money’s great. Lots of money is even more great. But living a humble life has a simplicity and a respectability I can appreciate. It feels more in line with what nature intended even if it means fewer toys and plane flights.
If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed. ~Edmund Burke
Possibly Related Posts:
- The Invisible Hand Just Slapped Us All. Are We Awake Yet?
- Am I Too Bought-In to Obama?
- How’s that Deficit?
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