Preoccupation

Raise your hand if a hearty portion of your brain's bandwidth has been taken up by the suckworthy state of the economy.

OK, you can put your hands down, now.

Me, I've been fretting. Even though, as J. rightly pointed out last night, "Nothing has changed for us."

True enough. We both have jobs. Our mortgage is not a type that will give us a nasty "readjustment" surprise. Life continues on, same as always.

But should it? Who knows how secure their job really is anymore? J's company just had another round of layoffs. Fortunately, he has a combination of seniority, talent and likability that means he probably doesn't have anything to worry about...other than crappy morale. Probably. I haven't detected any whiff of layoffs at my company, and I have a combination of talent, reliability, likability and underpaidness (!) that will probably serve me well if things take a turn. Probably.

But after months of economic news going from bad to worse, and intense weeks of watching friends and associates get (or narrowly avoid getting) their pink slips, how can we truly say nothing has changed for us? Or at least, how can we say beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing will change.

Simple. We can't!

Because being passive rarely serves anyone well (except possibly in the rare case of a bear attack), I've decided to be the architect of my own change. The result, I believe, will bring about a satisfying increase in financial and mental well-being. Stay tuned!