Update: See last paragraph for a warm fuzzy.
Like news two years ago with frequent reports from Iraq about the latest IED attack, living in Michigan right now is enough to make one shell-shocked.
Every week (or more frequently) someone I know well seems to be hit with unemployment:
- A friend bounced out of his retail-staff job.
- My neighbor looking over retirement papers from GM.
- Someone laid-off, but ‘banking hours’ with his company, whatever that means.
- Another guy recently promoted, then dumped.
- A consultant friend working a side-job to make ends meet.
You get the idea. Maybe you are experiencing the same thing. Maybe you are one of the guys hit.
While it is easy to say (like in the comments in my post about Obama) that ‘we need to take our licks’, I certainly don’t like what is going on. Stability on all fronts seems uncertain.
We’re busy here with orders that take months to produce. But companies seem to be acting shell-shocked, too, making it harder to commit to spending money. They can’t just cut costs, lay people off, and hold off on investing in their futures, can they?
Recession is maybe necessary to readjust prices, layoffs may truly be ‘right-sizing’, optimism maybe worth short-term tempering, but what is happening right now is a blockade caused by fear.
Do we all hear FDR’s voice? “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.”
Like my post about Obama, this is not something we can wait for others to fix, we need to contribute. Break the fear, move ahead, look for solutions.
(The alternate choice is ignoring the problem, which seems to be the most popular solution. I’m really surprised there isn’t more fear being shared in places like Twitter. We’ve got to admit we’ve got a problem first, then we can move forward in fixing it. Of course admitting things are bad could only add to the fear, so maybe I’m making the wrong move here.)
Update: Had to add this warm fuzzy found in the latest Tank Riot podcast:
From Mr. Rogers’ farewell: “And I know how tough it is some days to look with hope and confidence on the months and years ahead. But I would like to tell you what I often told you when you were much younger: I like you just the way you are.”