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RECESSION: THE SILVER LINING

Amid all of the hand-wringing over our dire state of economic affairs, there has been an interesting by-product: reprioritisation. High-flying New Yorkers are now staring at their hands, wondering why they had felt compelled to buy so much stuff. News commentators are suddenly tsk-tsking our collective wheezing on the "Hedonic Treadmill". Radio presenters (such as my local favourite) are offering smart, direct financial tips (eg, cut your credit card) and suggesting ways to celebrate the holidays that don't break the bank.

Brian Lehrer's blog on WNYC recently posed the question: "What would you like to receive this year instead of a store-bought gift?" The answers were telling. "The greatest gift my beloved husband could present to me, would be a vow to be on time at least 90% of the time", wrote Susan from Yorktown Heights. Others asked for donations to their favourite charities or for their families to help them pay down their credit-card debt. One aggrieved spouse simply asked for respect.

In these reflexive, existential times, when we are inclined to scrutinise our decisions, question our ambitions and wonder at happiness (and blog about it all, too), there is a lot more open speculation about what we are doing and whether or not it is good. There's been plenty of soul-searching about our materialism and superficiality--how soft and frivolous we've become, and how useful it might be to be reminded of what's important, now that we can't afford too many distractions.

Sure, no one who has just lost a job is chuckling over our financial hubris, and not all of the winners and losers make sense. But there is something refreshing about the way people are responding to this economic crisis. Book publishers are failing? Perhaps it's because they've spent too much time dumbing down and making bad choices. Car industry going down the tubes? Too bad the Big Three made such cynical decisions about fuel efficiency and SUVs.

And the effect may be to in fact diminish our collective anxiety, as Jonah Lehrer writes on his blog:

since 1950, the number of Americans describing themselves as very happy has declined from 7.5 percent to 6 percent. Even more interesting is fact that, as many countries become more prosperous, depression becomes significantly more common. Other studies have found that rates of depression and anxiety are twice as high among upper-class, suburban teens compared to the national norm. Obviously, differing rates of diagnoses play a big part in these statistics, but I'm not sure they explain everything.

It would be nice if a recession meant we will all soon be reading smart books and driving hybrids to meet our loved ones on time at the soup kitchen, where we will be volunteering. But at least this is what we're talking about. ~ EMILY BOBROW