A PARABLE ABOUT STUPIDITY. A bunch of people were in a rowboat, after their ship had to be abandoned. Suddenly, they noticed, with quiet alarm, that one man was using a drill to make a hole in the bottom of the boat beneath his seat. As the water was beginning to come in, he looked up and said, “Don’t be alarmed. I’m only drilling under my own seat.”
How did this world get into the economic mess it’s currently in? Well, to speak in glittering generalities, far too many of us (both individuals and nations) spent too much, borrowed too much, lived too high, saved too little, invested with too much risk, and played a Ponzi scheme with Nature. And when all this came crashing down, the consequences affected not just ourselves, but others around the world. And thus we learned that if you create a global economy, as we have in this Age of the Internet, you end up with all of us being in the same boat. And now what any of us decides to do, has consequences for others and not just ourselves. We see it even in metaphor: if I default on my mortgage, it lowers the value of all my neighbors’ homes.
Currently the world is going through a dreadful shudder, as it sobers up to what it has done, and sees the need to reform its economic ways. We may call the shudder “hard times,” or “recession” or even the big D word. The name doesn’t matter. It amounts to a gigantic economic hangover that is worldwide.
And so, consumers have new goals now: as a group we are trying harder to pare down our debt, to depend less on our credit cards, to set aside more savings, to live within our means, and therefore to spend less. As a result, companies are downsizing, even going under, and millions of us are losing our jobs—however temporarily—not to mention our homes, our early retirement, and our dreams.
For many of us, unemployment is a new and sobering challenge. And sometimes we feel, frankly, lost. Even bewildered.
History reminds us that this too shall pass. Challenges, since America’s pioneer days, have always been met, and conquered. It’s just a matter of time. In the meantime, here is a survival guide, for these new uncharted seas.
It’s not a magic bullet, and it won’t solve all your problems. But I hope it helps; and gives you, most of all, both patience and hope.
—Dick Bolles