Just Tell Me What to Think

Along with my breakfast, I'm digesting my daily dose of gloom and doom from the the newspaper. A headline says 4.4M people are affected by cutbacks, unemployment is at 8%, and the sky is falling. (OK, I just threw in the bit about the sky to see if you were paying attention.)

Right next to that is a teaser for an article on page B3: "Irrational Pessimism in the country." The outrageous happenings of the past few months have burned out my double-take response, so I just stared dully. Let's see. Gloom and Doom all around us...pessimism irrational. Oh-kaay. To be fair, the article on B3 was referring to Alan Greenspan's warnings in the late 90s about "irrational exhuberance" for stock when prices were being driven up. It also points out that stocks are about the same as they were then, before the bubble. It's just not as attractive on the way down, I guess.

I think the media is telling me to think all is lost--but maybe not, really. Is someone going to tell me what to think, please?

Meanwhile, I see my friends and family helping neighbors and friends and volunteering in community programs. I see helping hands offered and compassion given--in stark contrast to the way the captains of industry treated all of us over the last decade or so. This is quietly miraclulous. Can a country made up of such people fall into such a deep hole it will never get out? I may be irrationally optimistic, but I think not.

Never mind, don't tell me what to think. I think I'll believe my eyes and my heart.