Economy II

I’m starting to get a little cheesed by all the talk about the economy these days. Perhaps I’m tired of the 8 years of fear marketing we’ve been experiencing, perhaps I’m tired of feeling like an idiot for not understanding all the complexities of the economy. 5 out of 4 people are confused by fractions, after all.

But I think I’m starting to get mad at how often we’re being bombarded with the problem, scaring the bejesus out of most people, but not being given any information about how to cope with it. OK, the sky is falling, and we’re all going to lose our jobs and homes and health insurance. I get it. Now, what might help us not lose our minds in the process?

If you’re going to further trust today’s mass media that has been feeding us this fear by the spoonful, the solution is easy—pump yourself full of drugs. Drugs for your high blood pressure. Drugs for your impotence. Drugs for your depression and anxiety. Provided you have decent health insurance, of course. No wonder prescription-drug abuse is the fastest-growing addiction problem.

If I were King of the World, I’d make TV networks provide, for every well-paid drug advertisement they run, a free PSA spot for such organizations as the American Counseling Association, American Psychological Association, National Career Development Association, and so on. So that the average American can see and finally embrace the benefits of talking to someone as a possible solution to their problems. Madness, I know.

Until that time, I’m going to throw my 2 cents out there to the readers of this column.

We cannot control the economy. We cannot control if we are going to lose our jobs. We cannot control if we are going to get really sick or hurt with no decent health insurance.

When I think of how to cope with uncontrollable, daily fear and suffering, the main person who comes to mind is Dr. Viktor Frankl. Followed very closely by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Dr. Frankl, who died in 1997, was a Jewish Viennese psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor. The first part of his famous book “Man’s Search for Meaning” is a chronicle of his life and clinical observations amidst the horrors of the concentration camps. Frankl lost almost his entire family and life’s work (sewn carefully inside his jacket, only to be confiscated and destroyed) in the concentration camp system.

As Frankl experienced daily life in the concentration camps, he made striking observations about humankind’s capacity for physical and psycho-spiritual survival under the most horrific circumstances. He found that prisoners who regularly visioned a future where they would be united with family or finish incomplete professional or personal projects had higher survival rates than the people who had given up hope and succumbed to the darkness of the evil that surrounded them. He believed that humankind’s primary drive is towards finding meaning, and those who seek meaning and purpose even under the harshest conditions fare better in life. If I had to sum up Frankl’s philosophy in 30 words or less, I’d say this: Suffering is a part of life. Our task is to find meaning in the suffering, anchoring our hopes and positive core to a future of personal, professional, or creative fulfillment.

All the percentage points and statistics we hear about unemployment are comprised of thousands and thousands of individuals with very individual, personal stories. I am one of those individuals; a two-time layoff survivor and thriver (most days). But nobody is a statistic—we are each unique, on our own personal life’s journey, and it is our task to develop meaning, purpose, flexibility, hope, and dare I say it optimistic curiosity about our fate post-pink slip.

Frankl said “They can take everything from us but one thing—the last of the human freedoms—the freedom to choose our attitude in any of life’s circumstances, to choose our own way.”

So, attitude is ultimately a choice. Panic, despair, and insecurity are the first and necessary stages in the journey through the unknown; but these are stages to visit, not take up residence permanently. If you are facing a lay-off or any other form of a fearful and uncertain future, turn off the scary TV and talk to someone immediately. Talk to a friend or partner, talk to a mental health specialist, talk to a clergyperson, talk to God (and make sure you listen very carefully for a reply). You are not alone.

In the meantime, I hope everyone finds ways to focus on all that is well and beautiful in the world as we enter the last year of the first decade of the new millennium. Setting your homepage to www.happynews.com is a great step in that direction. Onward!




BIO: Nancy Goodman is a career and mental health counselor in Pocatello, Idaho. Nancy wishes to meet with anyone who has been laid off or is fearful of getting laid off. Her monthly cable series, “The Savvy Traveler’s Guide to Crazytown,” airs on Tuesdays at 9 pm and Fridays at 1 pm on local channel 12. You can contact Nancy directly at 208-478-1414 or goodnanc@yahoo.com.

It did it again.

Facebook just unpacked one of the most hilarious and beloved memories from my summer camp and high school years combined.

Facebook totally rocks. It's a roller coaster, but what's more fun than a roller coaster?

Good times.

Facebook

Published in the Idaho State Journal on December 14, 2008

About three years ago, my husband’s youngest cousin told me about an online college social networking site used regularly at the University of Illinois, where she was a freshman. In fact, Morgan never made a move without it. Party locations, casual socializing, flirting, posting photos from last night’s pub crawl. Anyone could join this site who had a college or university e-mail address, and you could only see someone’s site if they included you on their friend list. Since I had a .edu e-mail address and a strong desire to be hip and cool, I decided to check it out. For several, several months, Morgan was my only friend on Facebook, and while I found some of the ISU student Facebook groups amusing, I did pretty much nothing with it.

That changed rapidly just about a year ago, shortly after Facebook loosened restrictions in September 2006, allowing anyone to join up. All of a sudden, like a landslide, practically every person from my past slammed into my orbit. Summer camp, high school, grad school; old boyfriends, crushes, and interludes. Photos of me from 7^th grade through college, with people I have barely thought about in nearly 20 years. Almost weekly, a new person from some random and invariably emotionally-charged part of my history joins Facebook. And I’m eating it up like it’s an olive, goat cheese, and artichoke-heart pizza with pesto sauce.

I can unabashedly admit that I check my Facebook page at least once a day, often more. What I like the most is checking everyone’s profile status. Ah, the profile status. I often find myself thinking in profile status updates, like some people think in their mother tongue. As I do dishes and stare out into space thinking about the dream I had last night, I think “Nancy is…doing dishes and staring out into space thinking about the dream she had last night…”. While this odd third-person internal dialogue is not necessarily a good thing, what intrigues me is how the status update feature feels…Buddhist. The profile status is a little sliver of your day—a sliver of your day that you are focusing on in the present moment. What are you doing, now. It’s also a 25 words or less opportunity to provide all your long-lost pals or distant acquaintances with a snapshot of your personality. In approximately 25 words or less, I have learned that many people from my past travel to or live in strange and exotic places around the world, like Haifa, London, and Canada. I’ve learned about the insane busy-ness of being a stay-at-home mom. I’ve been given a peek into people’s mystical, metaphysical, merry, or mundane states-of-mind.

Facebook is also a vivid flashback of the varying degrees of self-esteem and other emotional issues I have had over the years. It’s been interesting and a little unsettling to peruse all the random photos of me posted on Facebook from the dusty photo albums of long-time friends and acquaintances. Who I was, what I thought of myself in relation to others, and what beautiful people I was drawn to in reverence who are still my friends to this day. The symbol of the spiral can be said to represent the rhythmic cycling over the same issues in different forms throughout life, each experience enticing us further down the path of enlightenment and self-growth--and to see my life’s progress on Facebook all at once sometimes feels like a tangled-up Slinky.

So what do I think about the phenomenon of Facebook? I think Facebook might have a very profound effect on the human psyche in the long-run. Never, ever before in history has humankind been able to reconnect with their past in such a manner. Before, the past stayed in the past—perhaps where it belongs. Ghosts, whispers, fleeting thoughts in and out; popping up on occasion symbolically during our REM stages. Not waiting for you every morning on your laptop while you sip your coffee.

This is a truly remarkable time to be alive. Forget about the economy for a second--we are at the dawn of the digital revolution. Ten years ago, Facebook didn’t exist. Ten years from now, it’ll have the emotional shock-value of a fading 4^th of July sparkler. All the freakish and jarring reconnections with our past will have been made and this digital thread to our past will be commonplace, boring.

How will this unprecedented access to our past play out in the future? I can’t wait to find out. But for now, perhaps I’ll just let Facebook help with my current life lesson which is to stay anchored in the present—even if I have to start with 25 words or less at a time. Onward!