Posts Tagged ‘personal stuff’
Happiness in 2009
If we’re to believe what we’re being told (and I do in this instance), the economy won’t recover from its ills until around the middle of 2010.
That is a grim thought.
Because 2008 was a tough enough year already for a lot people, including myself, and if I correlate economic growth to personal happiness than it means we’re in for essentially another lost year of satisfaction. I’m not sure I’m ready to scrap an entire year to malaise and struggle, even if that’s the reality.
My personal hope is that the economy is a lagging indicator of personal happiness and that the recession we’re currently mired in lags people’s personal situations by a couple months and that people will be able to find personal enrichment and satisfaction next year despite the economic trouble.
What actually drives happiness (or the lacke thereof) is the question here. Is it economic growth, economic change or is economics scarcely related to personal happiness? I suppose, if I needed to bet, the greatest economic impact to personal happiness comes from an adjustment in expectations, perhaps most directly expressed through the stock market, interestingly enough, since the stock market serves as the consensus view on expectations going forward.
If we believe that hypothesis then the periods of greatest unhappiness are the periods of the greatest aggregate decline in expectations. This year that happened in the Fall. Personally, that hypothesis lines up with my own experience.
But now that expectations have reset (at least based on the seeming stability of the Dow) then maybe 2009 can be a period of gradual and renewed optimism for the country and for me personally.
The deal is that over the last few years we’ve all grown accustomed to instant gratification. That not having to wait. And the adjustment towards a sentiment of steady and gradual appreciation through hard work, concentration and a relaxation of personal ego and self-centeredness. Well, that is something that is potentially very difficult and very painful. My guess is that’s the collective feeling we’re experiencing now. The realization that we simply do not have the power to go back and reset the economic circumstances that, as a country, led us here.
If I look ahead to 2009 for myself I see a year where I’m going to hopefully have better and deeper personal relationships with the people I love (and one person in particular), I’ll put out a record that shouuld get at least some positive notices, I’ll play my biggest shows, and I’ll be working hard to stay calm and focused. So those are all good things. Of course, I’ll be doing it on a tighter budget and that is something that is not as fun. But I’m still optimistic.
We’ll see how it goes. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.
Tags: personal stuff
