Old Year, New Year
I wanted to make a post before New Years, looking back on the last year, but never got a chance. Instead, I will use this as an opportunity to look back on the last year and look forward to the coming one.
It goes without saying that the last year was a mess. Hard times have not been so palpable in a long time. It was said over and over that it was the worst recession since the Great Depression, but for those born after 1940–if not before–that does not mean much on anything beyond a sheerly intellectual level. For us, it’s the worst ever. Most people would not be able to explain it in economic terms, because most folks are not economists. For them, the explanation comes in more personal terms–that is, they measure the severity of the recession in terms of how they have suffered.
Economists talk about a “multiplier effect.” If my faint memory of Economics 101 serves me well, it basically says that anything that affects the economy has effects that go beyond the immediate situation. If a factory hires new workers, those workers now have more income to spend on other businesses. Then, those businesses will be able to hire new workers, and so on. Put simply, one thing leads to another, and any analysis that simply examines one event without taking into consideration the larger chain of events is not worth the paper it’s printed. Well, maybe that’s overly dramatic, but you get my point.
What gets overlooked is that our personal lives work in much the same fashion. A parent losing their job means more than not being able to put food on the table, or, for a less extreme example, having less presents under the tree. There is a loss of pride that results. Maybe that pain leads a person to find comfort in unfortunate ways. Suddenly, there even more strain put on our relationships. Kids act out. Spouses fight, and on and on and on. There is even evidence of this on a physiological level. Sustained differences in mood affect brain chemistry. Prolonged periods of sadness, anger, resentment mean that, even once happiness returns, there is a fair amount of healing that has to go on before the brain returns to normalcy. It comes as no surprise, then, to hear, for example, that suicide rates in rural Indiana have skyrocketed.
What I mean to say is this. You always hear that the economy improves in waves, so one sector will get better before the other and so forth. Again, we have to remember that we do, too. Even after wages go back up and people get rehired, the job of putting the pieces back together will have only just begun. Trust will have to be regained, relationships reconciled, transgressions forgiven.
There is one giant reality on the macro level that makes this even more difficult. When people are struggling, the one thing that helps them keep putting one foot in front of the other is the belief that the system is fundamentally fair. Even if things are hard, those who keep trucking along will one day come out on top. That idea is at the heart of the American dream. Academics are quick to dismiss such beliefs as naivety, but in doing so they overlook the fact that, for those who are treading water, that “naive” hope is the only thing motivating them to keep themselves from going under. Maybe it doesn’t always work out, maybe it rarely works out, but it’s better than wallowing.
Now, however, it is hard to avoid such nihilism. Now we see that a person can work hard their whole lives and lose it all on account of someone else’s greed. What’s worse is that the bad guys don’t get punished, they get a payday. How does a person convince themself the world is fair when presented with that kind of reality? On the most tangible level, what motivates a person to get out of bed in that kind of world.
I saw a quote from the CEO of Goldman Sachs. He claims that Wall Street executives are just “doing God’s work.” It’s enough to make a good-natured, Midwestern Lutheran boy think downright unchristian thoughts.
What has happened over the course of the last year is not just an economic collapse, it is an identity crisis. The land of fairness isn’t, and nothing seems to be changing. Even the “change” candidate makes deals with the insurance companies that keep us from importing drugs from Canada and struggles to do anything beyond giving Wall Street a verbal slap on the wrist. At a time when we need more than ever to band together, there doesn’t seem to be a point.
My hope for the new year, then, is this. I hope that people find reasons to get out of bed in the morning. I hope people find a way to believe in something. And I hope that my country finds a way to believe in itself. Even if it’s just rooting for the U.S. Olympic team (NBC is begging you to watch), I hope people find reasons to cheer, to believe that we can still innovate and excel. This all sounds trite, until you remember that it is the only thing that can save us.
I’m hoping 2010 can be my best year yet. I hope it is a year of experiencing and applying personal growth. I hope to walk away from it with a sense of accomplishment.
I hope you do, too.
