When I was growing up during the civil war in Lebanon, recession meant your neighbor got shot. Depression meant you got shot. When we would hear the economy grinded to a halt, that meant you couldn’t buy bread, milk or gasoline. Credit crunch meant the bank was literally blown up. Devaluation meant the country’s currency was worthless. Put that into perspective when you turn on your TV set to listen to out-of-touch journalists dissecting the state of the US and global economy.
There is no doubt that people are hurting in this economic downturn, and I fully believe that many people genuinely need help. So what is the best way to deal with the current recession? It is all about how we interpret the information. Pessimists focus on events that are out of their control, while optimists target events that are controllable. Internal factors that could be controlled include the search for a job or starting a business. So focusing on numbers and bad news does not help in any way especially when the news is nothing but a look in the rear view mirror.
What concerns me most is the victimization trend that is sprouting in every corner. Once you start believing that you are not in control and everything that is happening to you is not your fault, then you become your own worst enemy. As Americans, we are strong because our culture was built on risk-taking immigrants who depended on themselves and themselves only. Compared to socialist or communist countries, where people learned to lean much more on their government and tend to blame everything on “the man”, Americans usually have the attitude that they control their destiny. Bailout trends might encourage people to play the victim role, thus exacerbating the recovery process.
So the faster we get over it, readjust to the recession and move forward, the better it is to our personal sanity and to our economy in general.
There is no doubt that people are hurting in this economic downturn, and I fully believe that many people genuinely need help. So what is the best way to deal with the current recession? It is all about how we interpret the information. Pessimists focus on events that are out of their control, while optimists target events that are controllable. Internal factors that could be controlled include the search for a job or starting a business. So focusing on numbers and bad news does not help in any way especially when the news is nothing but a look in the rear view mirror.
What concerns me most is the victimization trend that is sprouting in every corner. Once you start believing that you are not in control and everything that is happening to you is not your fault, then you become your own worst enemy. As Americans, we are strong because our culture was built on risk-taking immigrants who depended on themselves and themselves only. Compared to socialist or communist countries, where people learned to lean much more on their government and tend to blame everything on “the man”, Americans usually have the attitude that they control their destiny. Bailout trends might encourage people to play the victim role, thus exacerbating the recovery process.
So the faster we get over it, readjust to the recession and move forward, the better it is to our personal sanity and to our economy in general.
Worthy of note, the Lebanese people learned lessons from the Lebanese civil war and became resilient and risk-averse that the Lebanese financial system barred anyone in the country from investing in mortgage-backed securities, and Lebanon’s banks had one of their best years ever in 2008. (click here for more on the subject)
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