I never took an economics class in college, haven’t balanced my checkbook in 20 years, and I can barely remember my own phone number, but I know a sure solution for recovery during this economic recession. I am absolutely confident that all of us will recover much more quickly if we simply stop listening to the news.

Wouldn’t it be fascinating if economists could determine how much deeper this recession has become because of the hole the talking heads have dug for us? When I was a pastor in South Georgia, an elderly man was talking about the happiest times of his life. At one point I said, “But wasn’t that during the Great Depression,” to which he replied, “Son down here we were all so poor we didn’t notice the change so we never got depressed.”

A consumer-driven economy is almost entirely based on consumer confidence. It is true that the impact of the economy is very bad for those who have lost their jobs, and my heart goes out to them. However, most of us remain employed, and our salary checks keep coming. Fear and anxiety have had a greater impact on our lives than what is going on with the economy. That becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Don’t get me wrong; I know there are genuine economic problems. (My 401k statement looked as bad as yours!) Frankly, I can’t fix those, and neither can you. However, letting those challenges replace my happiness with worry doesn’t do me or the economy any good. What would do us all good is:

1. Stop feeding our minds/souls a steady diet of bad news. Listen to comedians, read books with happy endings, get back to a church/temple/synagogue/mosque where a word of hope is offered and songs of joy are sung.
2. Eat dinner at home with family and friends and play cards or board games. Exercises like this will remind you that the true joys in life don’t have to cost a lot.
3. Volunteer for a cause you believe in. This will remind you that your life has meaning and purpose beyond your job and paycheck.
4. Give generously. There are people who are unemployed and have little to give. As a result, almost every charity in the country is struggling to do more with less. If you still have your job, it is terribly ungrateful not to share a bit more of what you have.
5. Pray, meditate or focus on the possibilities. Decide to cooperate with the universe to celebrate every moment of your life from now until the finale.
6. Decide that retirement is overrated anyway, LOL. Honestly, the future may look different for some of us than we thought it would. Different isn’t always worse, though. How many stories do we know of people who worked to 65, retired and promptly got sick and died? Don’t picture yourself as a greeter at Wal-Mart (Heck, don’t ever picture yourself inside a Wal-Mart!), but begin to notice elderly people who are happy and make up your mind to be one of them.

I know these are pretty basic suggestions and that the economic reality is complicated. If you are an economist or a bank executive you can just ignore this advice. However, for most of us, the prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr that folks in recovery pray probably would do us all a lot of good. Here it is in its more complete form:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that God will make all things right
if I surrender to God’s Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with God
Forever in the next.
Amen.

Blessings,

Michael Piazza
President, Hope for Peace & Justice