How to Enjoy the Recession – An American Archetype in Action

Flickr photo courtesy of Andre Pipa

Let me be the first to say it: The time to panic is NOW.

The mad cow has replaced the French poodle; swine flu has become the H1N1 virus (so we can keep the pork industry political correct); and “foot in mouth” disease has run rampant worldwide, creating an unstoppable global pandemic that has crossed all social and economic boundaries… global warming has become the next ice age… and poverty has become the national past time… and the list goes on and on…

So is it time to buy or to sell in such a repressed market?

Or maybe it’s time to relax in the Caribbean (take advantage of all this global warming)? How about taking a moment for yourself and enjoy a peaceful moment of Zen meditation… or learn to play the piano or violin (if you don’t already)… how about another language (Spanish or Chinese would be a good start)?

Or, maybe you should be like everyone else worldwide and do nothing for a while.

Take your time before you buy or invest. Make sure that the stock market and real estate is at an all time low, scraping the bottom of the government’s “pork barrel” before doing anything. Wait and see… and then take advantage of all the hardships your neighbors are suffering through.

This is the American Archetype in action.

The financial and political bubble lasted far too long for our liking. Those times became boring and tedious… everyone was becoming millionaires so quickly and easily that we forgot that only the paranoid (those who kept looking to the future, saving for that “rainy day”) could survive.

We needed a recession to put everything back in perspective, to become “real” again… to learn from our mistakes.

During the “naughty” decade (sticking with the 0’s theme of 2000, it seems appropriate to refer to this decade as the Naught – zero – decade, which is a clever witticism on the “Not” decade, which is appropriate considering how badly the decade will be remembered) it looked like we could not make any mistakes. We were getting spoiled; we could not learn anymore because we knew it all already. How dare someone try and teach us something new (unless it consisted of handheld technology that could only push us all further away from actual human contact, providing us the opportunity to never have to be face-to-face with anyone).

But, in actuality, it has become clear that we needed the pain of a recession more than the gain to wake us from our dream and return us back to reality.

We needed a good recession (like the Europeans used to say that they needed a good war). This is the American collective unconscious in action. Let’s get our priorities straight. This is not the end, this is the real beginning. Until now we were only playing, like children enjoying a game… but, now that we have touched bottom, we are serious.

For example: we needed the Russians to be first in space, so we could be first to the moon… we needed Pearl Harbor to win World War II… we love a crisis, a catastrophe, and even a natural disaster to make us feel alive. These tragic incidents pull us together. They unite us around our archetypal forces and thanks to them we become one hell of a nation again.

During the last decade, we forgot that we were the last best hope for mankind and not just another big money machine without a soul.

So, with the American financial crisis in full swing, we have to go on a retreat for a while to reconnect with what made us the biggest, most powerful country in the history of modern times. We have to look at the problem through a new set of eyes, a new set of glasses and start all over again… as the true American archetype is coded to do.

Let’s take time to enjoy the recession.

It is a fantastic opportunity for Americans to move further up the spiral of growth toward their next identity… their next GREAT challenge.

It is time to reconnect with the American archetype because this is what people do in a time of crisis. They go back to the basics… to familiar brands, to safe buying behaviors and moving back to the “logic of life.”

Countries, governments, and companies with archetypal knowledge will thrive.

So it is time to remember and understand the codes for quality, loyalty, teams and leadership and to put them back in action.

And remember these obvious, but forgotten, words of wisdom…

Never sell when it’s low and never buy when it’s high.

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