The Upside of Recession

There is a post I've been meaning to write for a while.

Or rather, a feeling I've been meaning to capture on paper (blog). A feeling I knew would be temporary, and one that I already feel slipping away. The condition of the economy, the country, the world has had an interesting effect on me, and I'm sure (and hopeful) it has had the same effect on many other people. Maybe some of you.

Most of the time, whether it be in outright vocal ways or in subconscious, subtle ways, I think I'm usually wishing for more. More house, more expendable income, more prestigious jobs for Mike and me, more clothes, nicer furniture...you know what I mean. And I'm really not even a terribly materialistic person (despite how that last sentence sounded). Honestly, I don't have expensive taste or visions of grandeur for my life. I just have that basic human tendency to want a little more.

But lately, I've felt something new, and unexpected, and welcome: Grateful. Satisfied, even. These days, if you aren't buried in a mountain of debt, you are doing relatively um, fantastic, I would say. Sure, our apartment is only 900 square feet. And yeah, it has lost some value. But you know what would be worse? Living in a 12,000 foot house that had lost HALF its value. Or pouring all your savings into a deposit on a housing development that then went belly up, and losing it all. Losing everything you own.

These things are happening every day, to people all around us.

And our jobs don't pay that great, I know. But we have jobs! BOTH of us. How great is that?! They might not be the jobs we would choose in a perfect world, but we get 2 paychecks. And we aren't completely unhappy at them, either. I actually feel beyond blessed with my job.

I have a husband who is healthy, and here with me, who is good to me, who is good to my baby. I have a baby, who is beautiful, amazing, a little gift from God.

We have a home, we have an income, we can meet our financial obligations. Those three things are so basic, but out of grasp for so many right now. This might sound strange, but I sometimes feel really bad that I didn't have better instincts about buying when we did, that I somehow should have known that it was a really bad idea to buy into the market in 2005. I fault myself and even my relationship with God for not knowing better. But I did know not to buy any more than we could handle, and to get the type of loan we did--two things that have made a big difference. When I get down about anything these days, I just think to myself how it could be so much worse, as it is for so many unfortunate people.

Taking it a step further, I've also been putting our American woes in a more global perspective. We aren't under a dictatorship here, after all. We have so many freedoms. We are not victims of genocide, or severe oppression, and for the most part, we can live every day expecting to keep on living every day for the foreseeable future. Mortal fear is not a part of everyday life for the majority of us. If we were to lose our home, our belongings, everything tangible, we are still going to be better off than most people in this big world of ours. We still have so much, just because of geography.

Perspective is a wonderful thing. I'm so glad to have a healthy dose of it lately. I know it will inevitably fade, but I hope having a little record of it might help keep it close a little longer...