Times are tough, especially if you're an optimist, which I'm not. But I'll tell you, after a lifetime of being a punching bag for an endless parade of economic slumps, downturns, setbacks, slowdowns, crashes, tailspins, recessions, contractions, downcycles, hard landings, depressions, market corrections, and financial crises, I’ve got some comments to share with you.
First of all, anytime the Big Guys tell you there’s going to be a Soft Landing, there won’t be. Basically they want you to stay transfixed in your seat while they distribute the parachutes to themselves.
Second, don’t bother watching the economic vectors as they plummet thru the bottom of the graphs. They just increase your anxiety.
Third, things keep getting worse, right up to the point where you figure finally there's going to be a turn-around, and at that point things get worse again.
Fourth, stay positive!
Cling to the hope that the gods will protect you on account of they like you because they think you have spirit.
Never berate yourself about the dumb choices you made in the past, such as when you placed your savings in some fund where the guy’s in jail now, or when you turned down a professorship in Classics at NYU with a shot at a sponsored chair, an opportunity you'll never see the likes of again. Forget it! The past is over, gone, kaput! It has no entitlement to keep gnawing on your mind.
Don’t be bitter, even if you end up toiling in some typical psychopathic corporation where your zombie puppet co-workers stick daggers in your back and the boss sucks the blood from your veins to the point where it’s hard to get motivated any more.
Sometimes drawing up a list helps you feel better. Take a few seconds to make a list of all the things that are going right in your life!