Take A Deep Breath And Count To Ten

Here I am on December 30th. wondering where the whole year went and where we're going from here.

What a year. Oil hit $147 a barrel (with gas topping $4 a gallon) last summer and then the sub-prime mortgage mess hit, rocking the stock market to its roots. People's 401k accounts turned to mush and a hard fought election process concluded with a rout of the Grand Old Party. Mortgage foreclosures started rising at an alarming rate. Congress began throwing money around like drunken sailors and now we talk about spending "trillions" rather than mere "billions". (Speaking of which, I'm so old that I can remember when people thought a "million" was a lot of money.) The Financial Institutions were bailed out (for now) and the American car companies got a "loan" too. One wonders who's next to ask for a hand-out? There are plenty of new petitioners lining up before the gates of Congress but they'll have to wait for our new President to pull the purse strings open.

And I'm sitting here with the unenviable task of looking for a new job. Oh well...

I know a lot of people out there are worried about what's happened and what's to come. Hell, I'm worried too! But in times like these I'm often reminded of something my mother told me as a young child which I've heard many times since, stated in many different ways. To paraphrase, it's simply this:

When confronted with problems,
Change those that you can,
And accept those things that you can't.

I know, it's often easier said than done but try to remember that you, me and everyone else has been through tough times before and guess what? We've survived them. We probably didn't enjoy the ride but hopefully we learned something from the experience and that has made us better people. These are tough times but others have suffered worse. This is no Great Depression and will not become one. If we all keep our heads on straight and keep moving forward (even if very slowly) we'll make it to better times ahead.

Keep the faith; it'll all work out.