Please slow down

I don't like the current economic mood. I prefer optimism, and it's in short supply these days. I'm seriously worried that a downward spiral of negativity, amplified by doom and gloom stories in the media, is about to wreak real havoc on our way of life -- and not necessarily to the benefit of the planet. Negativity becomes carelessness, which can in turn generate some very ugly and dangerous outcomes.

I also have this nagging hunch that people want a long-term downturn. Whispers of depression are getting louder, they almost sound like nostalgia for the 1930s. It's as if, collectively, the consensus is that humanity is ready to take a duvet day.

Individually, of course, everyone wants economic stability, growth, and for their dreams to come true. But the mob psychology, fueled by the onslaught of newsfeeds and constant negative innuendo, is something different. Any student of economics knows that all this stuff is ultimately psychological.

A friend of mine works very closely with the most inner machinations of global business and finance, and I always look to him as a litmus test for how things will be going for the rest of us in the near future. Two things he said to me yesterday caught my ear.

First, he referenced Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Her landmark work on the Stages of Grief. He believes that the captains of industry and finance have reached the "acceptance" stage. I asked him what they are grieving. What died? His answer: "Capitalism." A pause. "At least for awhile," he added.

The second thing: he reminded me that it's useless to look at the Dow (or FTSE or any of them) every day, that it tells us nothing. My father used to say this to me. My accountants say it. But in real time, of course, I look at that number hourly like it's some kind of oracle, a harbinger of the state of the world. Not because I'm obsessed, but because that number is simply there, on my screen, nearly all the time. My own mood can rise and fall in synch with it.

There's a Buddhist slogan that's used for meditative mind-training: "Of the two witnesses, hold the principle one." The metaphor suggests that if you are trying to solve a crime or understand a circumstance and you can only hold one witness, you're going to want to hang on to the person who is closest to the circumstance, who experienced it firsthand. Police Detective 101.

In our own lives, the principle witness is always ourselves. Not the Dow, the columnist, the pundit, the President, the web 2.0 mob, but you. You know your life best. I know my life best.

Of course, this assumes that we've cultivated some healthy self-awareness. Something I work hard to do, daily.

So, my principle witness believes that the current mood is horrendous and even dangerous because it is moving us backwards. I can't deny some worrying fundamentals: job losses, bank nationalizations, budget cuts, the rapid shrinkage of my parent's retirement funds. It's bad stuff, and it's real.

Mere optimism can't change those things. Or can it?

I wonder whether happiness might be a more useful feeling than optimism. It's easier to be happy in the moment, happy with what we have right now, than optimistic about a future that's utterly uncertain.

My principle witness isn't entirely optimistic, but he's happy. My own mood is far better than the collective mood. Even my parents, for whom the timing of this whole thing could be devastating, are happy in the moment, and that keeps them going, if a bit slower than before.

Happily slowing down is different than receding or being depressed. It can be good, and healthy, and an opportunity for innovation and growth. Like driving carefully and slowly home down a dark icy road, it's how we're going to get ourselves through this thing.