A global recession looks like boom times for unhappiness. The spectrum of discontent runs from the jitters and uncertainty at the milder end to despair and deep depression at the far extreme. I think everyone would agree with Freud that anxiety is the mind’s most unwelcome guest. Right now, millions of people are playing host. Nine out of ten Americans are gloomy about the future. Something like half worry about job security. Polls vary, but the general population has lost faith in optimism, a trait in this country that we have always been proud of. 
What worries economic observers the most is a dragging recovery, the looming shadow of a double-dip recession, and massive unemployment that lingers for a decade. But these concerns, however real, are a distraction. Economies are rooted in psychology. When people are frightened they don’t spend, invest, or take risks the way they do when a dark mood doesn’t prevail. Irrational exuberance fuels good times, which doesn’t make it less irrational but which lifts the atmosphere so that people will strive for a better future.
In the mass media ninety percent of recovery plans and proposals are materialistic. But without a shift in psychology, such plans will not lead to growth an expansion. The example of Japan’s "lost decade" should have taught us that no central banking stimulus, fiscal policy, or lowered interest rates for borrowing can have the slightest effect when psychology is ruled by fear. The fact that President Obama favors stimulus is certainly preferable to the Republicans’ religion of free-market-forever, more-for-me, forget-everyone-else. Altruism and social consciousness is always better than greed and thinly disguised bigotry and intolerance. But Obama poses as a fix-it president when in truth he needs to be an inspirational president. He proposed eminently reasonable fixes (keeping homes out of foreclosures, lending to small businesses, reducing reckless risk-taking on Wall Street) that went nowhere. When people are afraid, they clamp down and shut themselves up inside.
There is a plus side to unhappiness, however. When you face fear, you can choose to get out of fear. When confronted with a crisis, you can learn to cope better. When you have less in the way of material advantages, you can discover that happiness and comfort aren’t the same thing. The fact is that America has solved its economic bad times by holding its breath and waiting for money to flow back in. That kind of muddling through may not work this time, and every warning sign says it won’t. It’s up to each person, then, to begin to grow on their own, addressing the problem of fear first. No crisis was ever solved by contracting and hiding. The solution always comes from expansion and rising above the level of the problem until the level of the solution is found.
deepakchopra.com
you said it, Mr. Dee. when we as a society promote and express the value that happiness is predicated on material well-being, and practice that as individuals, the plus side to experiencing "unhappiness" because of material lack is the opportunity to learn that true happiness doesn't depend on any external stimulus (pun intended), but on an internal and conscious choice to remain happy, satisfied and fulfilled as a being simply from the joy of being, regardless of material circumstance. it's only that attitude that allows for the kind of optimism and determination that's necessary to attract the energies and circumstances to lead us, individually and collectively, out of a period of material lack and back into one of stability and well being. but if we fail to take advantage of that opportunity, and continue to attach our happiness to material well-being and to perceive the solution to material lack as a matter of matter and not energy, the fear you describe many people experiencing will lead to more serious manifestations such as rage and, when mixed with desperation and frustration, never has any good results for anybody. individually or collectively.
It is great that one can express 'rage' on the Internet, though in a 'protected' way, like Deepak did let happen on his official website. In this way one is allowed to 'rant' ones own personal negative thoughts and slowly but surely come to the conclusion that the 'answer' to any rant lies in oneself.
Material wellbeing to a certain extent is necessary before one even is able to think about what wellbeing really IS.
Hello Deepak,
I don't think inspiration is what Americans want from President Obama, right now. Americans want to know what he intends to do about the jobless job market that he along with the House and Senate have not truly addressed as the biggest problem that is holding Americans and America back from being able to move forward with a bit of faith in the future.
By and large Americans counted on manufacturing jobs, but they are all gone, now, that would have been fine and dandy had the powers that be prepared us for "the" replacement jobs,"but" why think that far ahead when you are a wheeling and a dealing a nation's livelihood away.
A college education costs as much as a home (not one near a major city, of course) and there is not enough work in this country to warrant that high cost anymore.
Yes, times are REALLY tough, right now, and from the looks of things it will be so for quite some time, unless there is some "miracle" influx of "happy work," because that is what America needs, right now, WORK.
One thing President Obama is doing right is not painting a pretty picture of the situation, he is being realistic about the problem that is facing us. The Republicans will campaign on jobs and they will paint pretty pictures of what they can do with the nothing that is. Whether Americans fall for it or not will be give us a good idea if voters are serious about helping ourselves find new ways or whether we would rather "pretend" we are.
President Barak Obama was elected on a great "change" campaign unfortunately I bet it was his own perspectives that did most of the changing, it certainly wasn't our way of doing business in Washington. Change had to wait because bailouts took front and center stage and most of the jobs created were part time without any benefits. More and more older workers are taking these jobs through necessity.
I'm not one for anti-depressants, reading the warnings on them is too depressing. I think there are times in people lives when the day to day is too tough to handle and there are times in the life of a nation where this is true also, I dont' think we as a nation have hit that point yet although many American have. I do think the possibility is more real today than yesterday that we as a nation are moving toward that reality. I hope not but I don't know how my fellow Americans feel. The next election will give more of an idea as to which way we will turn.
President Barak Obama's election was due to the plus side of unhappiness for most Americans. I just hope Mitt Romney or Michelle Bachmann or Newt Gingrich isn't going to be in 2012.
I remember that Barack Obama was chosen because he managed to get a lot of young people on the Internet believing in his ideals.
What I have learnt from politics in my life is that one will always have to compromise when having the power of presidency or prime minister.
One simply has to learn that there are so many obstacles that one wasn't aware of during the campaign.
One thing president Obama is still doing, is giving every one who wishes so the opportunity to bring in his/her solution to one or more problems.
No president can do it alone.
You have a fifty fifty or status quo at the moment in your country, as far as I can understand.
The next elections will therefore depend on how many (young) people, left and right, are willing to bring in their own creativity and ideas!