Every day we are bombarded with more news about banks failing, people taking bonuses which reward failure, more firms getting into trading difficulties and an ever growing list of people becoming unemployed from what were once considered to be secure jobs.
The amazing thing, I find, is that despite the information overload of bad news and a grim outlook for the future, people seem to be able to carry on as though nothing is different from the way it was a year ago. In my work, day by day, I meet people who are going about their daily lives quite normally and seem to be if anything more friendly and concerned about my wellbeing than they were previously. There seems to be more time and space to exchange greetings and that loaded question, how are you? To which the current reply seems to be 'I'm good, Thank you.' My preferred reply is usually 'I'm very well, thank you,' or perhaps 'I'm fine, thank you very much'. Often we may not feel fine when we say this, there is a nagging feeling that perhaps not everything is right, but the positive reply reinforces in us a sense that our troubles are trifling in comparison with what many others are going through in their particular circumstances.
What I sense is that maybe there is a possibility that the current 'downturn', 'recession' or whatever appropriate label we may use to describe the current scenario is something we feel we are going through together. From our previously independent way of living and working there may be emerging a cultural shift, one in which we communicate by mobile phone, the internet and even talking to our neighbours over the garden fence or on our doorstep. Materialism and consumerism in this setting may be taking a secondary or even lower place in our thinking and way of life.
Is it possible that it has taken a recession, a breakdown in confidence in our once respected bankers and financiers to draw us closer together? We have lost and are losing many post offices, shops and pubs which once were hubs of social interaction, sometimes mixing business with pleasure. It is my hope that with our human resourcefulness and ability to adapt and embrace new technology we will develop a sense of community and working together which will be a new style of community and society fit for the 21st. Century. There will always be givers and takers in any social setting, maybe now is the time to ask, 'What can I contribute?', 'what can I give', not in the sense of money but in time, encouragement, concern, a willingness to help and listen to others.
It is an ill wind that blows no good, even a recession and its effects could make us a better society and more able to live our daily lives in a more fulfilling way, more people orientated than goal and money orientated. I see the green shoots of recovery as I meet people every day, and those are not shoots of economic growth!
