On September 15th, 2008 your humble blogger had a great job, working for and with people he greatly admired and respected. In our own way, we were making a difference and improving the world. We had great plans for expanding our reach and our impact.
On the morning of September 16th, 2008 that had all changed and the world, for us, would never be the same. Millions of my colleagues around the world would lose their livelihood and most would never work in the industry again. Our own efforts and aspirations were stilted and scaled back so much that within a decade all we had built was no more. Most people think the crash of 2008 was a smack on the markets and then everything returned to normal. They look at the ‘index’ and say, “wow that was tough, glad it’s over”. The savvy ones ask, “why is my retirement recovering so much slower than the index?”. Indexes do not show the casualties because the casualties are dragged off of the field and replaced by new fodder. For many in the industry the crash, and the crushing regulatory destruction that followed, changed the world forever.
Don’t let market-speak drive you away. All of that was written to inform you that your humble blogger does know what it’s like when the world changes on a whim, never to be the same again. Those of us in the financial industry emerged from the fiasco that started in 2008 into a world that was radically and forever changed, a New Normal.
A much larger percentage of the population is about to emerge from the current fiasco in a similar state. Few things will be exactly as they were, somethings will be very different, and somethings will cease to be. Some aspects of what is to come will be better and some will be worse. It is impossible to know much about what will be, and so, of little use to fret. For those reasons it would be unhealthy to spend our isolation time just ticking off days until we can go back to ‘normal’. Our time is better spent considering how to improve our skills, talents, training, and passions so that we are ready for the mysterious new world that will emerge. The Hebrew bible tells us of a practice God prescribed to his chosen people called Sabbath. The general idea was that of taking time to rest on the 7th day. God even designed a rest for the land every 7 years and a time of jubilee every 49 years. These rest times were not times of napping and watching Netflix, but that they were times of rejuvenation. Land does not sleep when it is rested, the grass still grows, the worms still ply their way, enriching the soil – the land rejuvenates, it improves. Could we accept our current state as a kind of Sabbath?
Let us use our isolation as a time to contemplate our purpose, examine our lives, seek to be better people. Let us strive to form ourselves to better love our families, better love neighbors, better serve our community through our labor, art, and volunteerism. And through that striving, shape the New Normal.
