when recession hit

Six months ago, I gave a lecture at the Global Design conference Whitespace held at the DIA centre for art in New York. The audience, primarily from the US and Canada, were involved in everything from automobile design, make up and packaging to event catering.

My topic was 2005+ and I had chosen the subject matter: “After recession comes rediscovery.” In my contribution, I focused on whether the global crisis, where ‘global’ tends to only mean the West, is a real or a psychological one.

When I was putting together research material for my talk and the ‘re-concept’, I constantly ran into two prevalent schools of thought: one was “There is a recession, but it will be over by the end of 2002 and it is more of a psychological than a real one.” The other was “The recession has not even begun and it will be the worst we’ve seen in years.”

The recession is splitting people into two camps – in one, the glass is half-full, and in the other it’s half-empty. In Britain with their “stiff upper lip” mentality, they hope they can hush up the crisis, in other parts of the world they think they can talk it to death. But it is not like that. The crisis did not begin overnight; it came about slowly over a long period of time. The first signs of turnover slipping, missed customer visits and bankruptcy were already evident in early 2000.

A drop too far
The seeds of the crisis were there before, but the tragedy on “nine – eleven” was the last drop that made the glass overflow. An incident which first touched us all emotionally, and then later the world economy. The stock market plummeted instantly and many companies used “nine – eleven” as an opportunity to make radical decisions regarding their business. They carried out massive cuts, redundancies and cancelled orders. Then the bankruptcies followed and many said that hard times were on their way.

It was practically a global paralysis. Nobody had expected that anything like this could ever happen. That is why the West remains so nervous and uncertain. Aided and abetted by idiots sending white powder through the mail and scare mongering. It’s really a case of fear and terror creating mistrust and making people think that the glass is half-empty. A situation that makes us hold on tightly to our money – more tightly than ever. “Because you never know what’s going to happen next…” Rather than focusing on how to get our of the crisis, we are focusing too much on the crisis itself.

Recovery
Even my five-year-old son and his young friends are talking about aeroplanes flying into buildings and my mind automatically makes the same connection each time I see a low flying plane. The whole incident was like a movie – it lasted less than one and a half hours from the first crash until the buildings collapsed. Today we are left with adults and children who are afraid of everything strange and unknown and now need counseling to help them manage their everyday lives. So much for constant and direct media coverage. London has learnt to live with terrorism. A terrorism, that has taken a lot of human lives and caused a great deal of sorrow, not forgetting the economic implications.

But despite the constant threat, life goes on. When despair takes root, the spirit is the only thing that counts. People with half-full glasses are happy to have found new values, to have re-discovered solidarity with others, the ability to appreciate what you have, rather than what you have lost or stand to lose. In tough times, you sometimes learn more in three months than you would normally in three years, so a crisis can also lead to positive things. When you take time to enjoy the here and now, a whole new world of different values can open up. These new found values could be our first step towards recovering from a crisis.

Power-thoughts
It is obvious that one has to have new values and lots of positive thinking in order to move on. In my own little world, where the glass is mostly full, I have expended a great deal in trying to think positive. Creating positive energy is the only thing that really works in the midst of crisis and negativity. As one of my American girlfriends says: “I simply refuse to take part in mass hysteria, I do not want to turn on the television to get influenced by all those bad vibes day in day out. Usually, we shy away from all the bad things, but now, all of a sudden we all have to participate. If not, we are all terrible human beings. No thank you.”

I think a lot of people can subscribe to this way of thinking. For me personally the incident has expanded my consciousness and opened up new thoughts and channels. The recession was there before, and even if the incident on “nine – eleven” has left many feeling unsafe and depressed, many more have opened their eyes to the global situation, which has again brought a lot of positive reactions.

A couple of years ago, I came across a small box with 64 cards in a bookstore, each bearing a little uplifting motto. The cards are called “Power thought cards” – powerful affirmation cards, produced by Louise L. Hay. She herself writes “affirmations are like planting seeds in the ground. It takes some time to go from seed to a full-grown plant. And so it is with power thought – it takes some time from the first declaration to the final demonstration. So be patient.” A card from the box says: “I turn every experience into a positive challenge” on one side, and on the reverse it says: “Every problem has a solution. All experiences bring new possibilities to learn and grow. I am safe.”

Anne Lise Kjaer
January 6, 2002