Or, as Suze Orman puts it, “No Blame, No Shame.…106 The first, and most difficult, step is to absolve yourself and your spouse or partner of any guilt.… Whatever mistakes you feel you have made with money, whatever moves you wish you had or hadn’t made, are irrelevant.” That’s not the kind of counsel you’d normally get from a financial adviser—but it is spot-on. Focusing on the deeply personal aspects of “personal finance” is essential if we are going to effectively navigate these challenging times.
Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatté, authors of The Resilience Factor, have identified resilience as the key to how we deal with what life brings us: “Where you fall on the resilience curve—your natural reserves of resilience—affects your performance in school and at work, your physical health, your mental health, and the quality of your relationships.…107 We all know resilient people. They inspire us. They seem to soar in spite of the hardship and trauma they face.… Resilient people understand that failures are not an end point. They do not feel shame when they don’t succeed. Instead, resilient people are able to derive meaning from failure, and they use this knowledge to climb higher than they otherwise would.
“Resilient people,” they continue, “have found a system—and it is a system—for galvanizing themselves and tackling problems thoughtfully, thoroughly, and energetically. Resilient people, like all of us, feel anxious and have doubts, but they have learned how to stop their anxiety and doubts from overwhelming them. We watch them handle threat with integrity and grace and we wonder: Could I do that?”
Luckily, resilience, like fearlessness, is a muscle we can build up. The more we use it, the stronger it becomes, and ultimately, how we deal with adversity depends on how much we have developed this inner strength.
Dominique Browning, who lost her job as editor in chief of House and Garden, describes the long months after being knocked off her career path: “Privately, I was in a whiplashing tailspin.108 My nightmare had finally come true. For years, I had a profound dread of unemployment that went way beyond worrying about how to pay the bills. I would like to say that this was because of the insecure nature of magazine publishing, but my anxiety had more to do with my own neuroses—though I didn’t think of it that way. Work had become the scaffolding of my life. It was what I counted on. It held up the floor of my moods, kept the facade intact. I always worried that if I didn’t have work, I would sink into abject torpor.”
Indeed, after being fired she went through “months of depressed sloth.”109 But, slowly, she began to take daily walks, sometimes for miles every day, giving herself lectures: “Buck up.110 Just because something has failed doesn’t mean I am a failure. Just because something has ended doesn’t mean it was all a mistake. Just because I have been rejected doesn’t mean I am worthless and unlovable. Sound familiar? It would if you or anyone you know has gone through a divorce. I had hauled myself through one of those many years earlier. This felt like the same thing. Worse. A divorce you choose. Unemployment chooses you.”
Obviously, faith helps people develop the resilience they need in difficult times, but so do simple things such as learning to reduce stress by unplugging and recharging, getting enough sleep, and the walks and daily lectures like Browning gave herself.
Eventually, things turned around for her.111 “I hate to be the one to bring up silver linings, or worse, windows opening while doors are slamming,” she says, but over time she came to feel as if she had grown a new taproot, “one that reaches deeper into nourishing soil. I am more resilient. If I had to pin it down, I would say I finally fell open to the miracle of this world.”
Jim Laman of Holland, Michigan, is another great example of how resilience can get you through tough times. He spent twenty-one years working at furniture manufacturer Herman Miller before he was “downsized” in the economic tailspin that followed 9/11. He found his next job at a smaller company, but in 2006 he abruptly lost it in a mass layoff. “There was absolutely zero warning,” he says. “My benefits ended that night at midnight, as did my pay. I was devastated. Never saw it coming. They even kept the bonus that I had earned for the past year. I was bitter for a long time about that and it still bothers me, as the company was supposedly so ‘family oriented.’ I guess that came with a caveat!”
Laman found another job, this time at a manufacturer of truck transmissions in southwest Michigan. It was sixty-five miles away, but he kept his gas bill down by riding his motorcycle, even through treacherous weather, which saved him about sixty dollars per week. Then, in November 2008, as the economy reeled from the financial crisis, his company issued a round of pink slips—and once again, with just twenty-four hours’ notice and a month before Christmas, he was out of a job.
“It was not a merry Christmas,” he remembers, “but we got a few gifts for the kids and a free tree to put them under. I started selling things on eBay to help make ends meet, and have continued to do so sporadically to this day. Classic Herman Miller furniture is quite valuable, so we sold a few pieces and I parted with a classic Saab and the parts I had collected for it for many years. I’ve sold about five thousand dollars’ worth a year on eBay, and it has helped tremendously. In the meantime, my wife lost her contract job at Herman Miller, which was another blow to us. During this time we were very worried about losing our home, and my parents helped us a little. I was so stressed that there were days I wondered if I could go on much longer, frankly. Unemployment benefits and the remainder of our retirement savings got us through. I looked into selling blood, any sort of factory work, doing odd jobs, anything for some income … but no takers.”
He filled out almost five hundred job applications. Frustrated, Laman broadened his search, first to Indiana, and then as far as Chicago, where he finally received an offer in mid-March 2009. In a complete upheaval of his life, he accepted the job.
“Soon after, I found a room to rent up in Evanston, about six miles north of where I work, and I still live there. I commute home to Michigan every Friday night, returning on Sunday evenings, so weekends are rather short, but we are making it work. People thought at first that my wife and I were separated or getting a divorce. But no, we are fine. We just live in different states! Kind of funny really, but I got a better cell phone plan and with that and email, we stay in fairly good communication. At times, I find out what is going on via Facebook, too! … I think it is about attitude and priorities: If you go in with a good attitude, good things will come your way. As a result I am involved in many things that I never would have done before, including company volunteer work, a softball league, and exploring the city on my own on my motorcycle. All new stuff—and kind of fun. Things I never would have imagined doing back in 2006 when I lost my job.”
For many left jobless by the recession, resilience has meant hitting the books, so as unemployment rose, college enrollment—particularly at community colleges—also increased. When Patty C., a director of service for a health-care company in Denver, Colorado, was laid off from her job in June 2009, for example, she kept herself busy for the six months she spent unemployed by earning new certifications and heading back to school for a degree in health-information management. For Patty, losing her job was a chance to sharpen her skills and upgrade her qualifications: “We have spent our lives dedicated to the companies we worked for,” she said. “Now is the time to focus on ourselves and rethink our next career move.” Unemployment also forced Patty to slash her family’s expenses, which she did with the guidance of coupon blogs and websites dedicated to frugality. When she did land her next job, as an operations manager for a nonprofit organization, she said that despite a 25 percent pay cut, she felt “secure about the future,” confident in her ability to get by with less and certain that her new education would “open doors … that were closed before.”
Lesa Deason Crowe, a small business owner who lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, saw the financial crisis nearly destroy her twelve-person advertising firm. “It started in the news,” she recalled. “Every night, there would be a
nother story about the recession, depression. This was in fall 2008. Clients started to get jittery and began to proactively get ready for ‘disaster.’ Part of that planning was to get rid of all the ‘fat’ in their budgets, which in my case meant cutting all advertising, marketing, and public relations work. My lowest point was when three clients quit in one day. I walked in, prepared for a typical monthly meeting, and the next thing I knew I was fired on the spot. Three in a row. Our two largest clients and our fifth largest. Gone.”
She tried to keep her prized employees busy, but she couldn’t shield herself from worry, which kept her up nights. “My husband was in Iraq, my son would be asleep, the house was clean and I would lie there awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Something like this haunts you. I worried about the people I work with, as well as my clients, because I care for them, they’re friends. I worried about the bills, about my business, about absolutely everything.”
Things finally started to take a turn for the better when Lesa got involved with the Rural Enterprises’ Women’s Business Center in Oklahoma City. “One of the ladies in my peer advisory group leaned over and handed me a business card. ‘Here’s a heck of a client for you,’ she said. It turned out to be the biggest client I have.” Soon after, her former clients began to trickle back. “It took about a year but every client but one has returned.” Lesa credits the Women’s Business Center and the women she met there with helping her keep both her business and her sanity.
Lesa draws inspiration from her mother, who divorced in 1964 with four daughters under the age of seven. “Every day I saw this magnificent woman with a college degree do everything from taking in sewing to working at a canning factory. She used to say: ‘How do you clean up the house? Well, you pick up one thing and put it away. You pick up another thing and put it away. You do that again and again and soon your house is clean.’ The same thing is true in business. We get so scared and we sit there, bummed out. You have to look up and say, even if I do something very, very small, I’m going to keep plugging along and accomplish something today!”
FINDING THE SILVER LINING
“When you are helping others, you are helping yourself.” It’s amazing, when hearing stories of resilience, how often that sentiment pops up.
It’s an unexpected twist: Taking the one thing you have an abundance of when you are out of work—time—and using it to help others turns out to be remarkably empowering and energizing. Moving beyond a sense of helplessness to make a difference in the lives of others—whether working at a food bank, delivering meals to seniors, or mentoring a child—can transform our experience of even the most stressful times. The consequences of being jobless are not just economic—they’re also psychological. And the psychic toll is greatly lessened by taking a look outside ourselves and finding ways to serve others even less fortunate. It can bring both perspective and meaning to our lives. Plus, evidence shows that when we look outward, reach out, and connect—especially in times of trouble—good things follow.
Take the case of Annette Arca, a Las Vegas commercial real estate professional.112 After she lost her job, she began to spend some of her newfound free time volunteering in her community. Even though she couldn’t afford to make the payments on her town house, she figured there were still people in worse situations who needed help, so she set aside a chunk of hours each week to help deliver lunches to medical centers and work with homeless families. “It’s a great opportunity to get involved, to help other people,” she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. But volunteering also lent Arca a sense of purpose and positive outlook that complemented her job search. “If I’m negative, nothing’s ever going to happen for me,” she said.
Then there’s Seth Reams, who lost his job as a concierge in December 2008.113 He took an energetic approach to his job hunt, circulating his résumé to more than three hundred potential employers. But when he got no bites, Reams told KOMO Newsradio in Seattle, he felt useless, “like I wasn’t a member of society anymore, like I wasn’t contributing to [my] household anymore.” Frustrated, he and his girlfriend, Michelle King, who worked as an assistant administrator analyst at a health insurance company, brainstormed ways for him to stay productive during his job search. Together, they came up with We’ve Got Time to Help, an online platform for locals who have extra time—generally people who were laid off—and want to contribute to the community in Portland, Oregon, where Reams and King live. For the blog’s first project, Reams helped a single pregnant woman, who also cared for her three siblings, move furniture into her home. More projects soon followed: painting a room in a battered-women’s shelter, teaching refugees how to drive, helping a needy family repair the roof on their home.114 Within sixteen months of the site’s launch in January 2009, We’ve Got Time to Help assembled more than a hundred volunteers, who’ve assisted hundreds of struggling locals.
“People call us with tales of hunger, home loss, job loss, personal loss, and myriad difficulties,” Reams and King wrote on their blog in May 2010. “But, most still have hope. Hope that things will change. Hope that times will get better. Hope that their situation will get better. Hope that someone still cares. And if someone calls us that seems to have lost their hope, we do our best to give them a little. We tell them that we will do everything in our power to help them. We will not walk away from them. We will stand by them in their darkest hour.”
“The ultimate measure of a man or woman,” said Martin Luther King, “is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”115
LESSONS FROM THE FINANCIAL FOXHOLE
After spending months embedded with a thirty-man platoon in Afghanistan’s remote Korengal Valley, Sebastian Junger, who wrote War based on the experience, says that he was struck by how, after being put through “the worst experience possible,” soldiers often miss it upon returning home.116 It’s not because they are adrenaline junkies, he says. They are addicted to the brotherly love. “Every guy in that platoon was necessary to everyone else and that necessariness, I think, is actually way more addictive than adrenaline is,” says Junger. “You have an unshakable meaning in a small group that you can’t duplicate in a society.”
We actually can duplicate “unshakable meaning” and “necessariness” outside the battlefield. Indeed, we have to. In times of mortal danger, soldiers unconsciously create a sense of purpose and community and kinship. Right now, the perils we are facing here at home are not as tangible and deadly as those faced by our soldiers in Afghanistan. Nobody is shooting at us—and I don’t mean to draw an equivalency to the lethal threats our men and women in uniform are bravely facing every day. But twenty-six million people are unemployed or underemployed, and over 4 percent of U.S. workers have been unemployed for more than six months—nearly twice the percentage it was back in 1983.117, 118 Forty-six percent of the unemployed have been out of work for over six months; 23 percent have been unemployed for a year or more.
And more and more people are entering the ranks of “the 99ers”—those who have been unemployed for ninety-nine weeks, after which all unemployment benefits end.119 Since Congress has been unwilling to extend benefits beyond that point, by the end of 2010 over a million people will likely have exhausted all available benefits. Of course, a third of America’s unemployed never receive any financial support when they lose their jobs; they’re ineligible to receive unemployment benefits.120
Making matters worse, there is a growing—and disturbing—trend among some employers: job listings that explicitly ban unemployed workers from applying, with lines like “No unemployed candidates will be considered at all,” “Must be currently employed,” and “Client will not consider/interview anyone NOT currently employed regardless of reason.”121
“In the current economy, where millions of people have lost their jobs through absolutely no fault of their own, I find it beyond unconscionable that any employer would not consider unemployed workers for current job openings,”
Judy Conti, federal advocacy coordinator for the National Employment Law Project, told the Huffington Post. “Increasingly, politicians and policy makers are trying to blame the unemployed for their condition, and to see this shameful propaganda trickle down to hiring decisions is truly sad and despicable.”
Make no mistake: Though it’s not war, it is financial warfare—and there’s an enemy out there that does not wish you well. The bad guys are not firing bullets; they are setting financial traps. Foreclosures continue to surge. Health-care costs are going to continue to skyrocket—even for the insured. And long-term unemployment is going to be a fact of life for the foreseeable future.
The consequences can be far-reaching: A study by researchers at Yale found that “high unemployment rates increase mortality and low unemployment decreases mortality and increases the sense of well being in a community.”122 According to M. Harvey Brenner, one of the study’s authors, economic growth is the single biggest factor in life expectancy. “Employment is the essential element of social status and it establishes a person as a contributing member of society and also has very important implications for self-esteem,” he says. “When that is taken away, people become susceptible to depression, cardiovascular disease, AIDS and many other illnesses that increase mortality.”
So how can we protect ourselves and those close to us? How can we re-create the sense of “unshakable meaning” and “necessariness” Junger describes? How can we create our own bands of brothers—and sisters—in communities all across the country that will give us that sense of purpose and necessariness, and allow us to face down these threats?
The truth is, we are hardwired to seek out unshakable meaning. The longing for necessariness is in our DNA. Fifteen years ago, I wrote a book—The Fourth Instinct—about the part of ourselves that compels us all to go beyond our impulses for survival, sex, and power, and drives us to expand the boundaries of our caring beyond our solitary selves to include the world around us: “The call to community is not a hollow protestation of universal brotherhood.123 It is the call of our Fourth Instinct to make another’s pain our own, to expand into our true self through giving. This is not the cold, abstract giving to humanity in general and to no human being in particular. It is concrete, intimate, tangible.”
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