Hope in times of trouble

This column concludes my four part humour series on the economic crisis. Not that there isn’t more to say about it, but when I realized I can no longer afford my cable TV package, the recession just stopped being as funny as I’d hoped.

So today, I leave you with some words of encouragement.

When it comes to any challenging life issue, we need to ask ourselves, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

The answer is always this: “The earth could burst into a huge flaming fireball and we could all die horribly.”

Now ask: “Is the current financial downturn likely to cause that?” Of course not. It will only feel like it. There, doesn’t it all seem better already?

Having concluded the worst isn’t possible … or well, likely, we can steel ourselves for dealing with a “not quite so bad as actual death” scenario.

The way I help myself get through difficult times is to consult people wiser than myself.

Fortunately, such people are not hard to find.

Usually, what these sages offer is simple, basic, sensible advice.

The kind of advice my mother gives. They just don’t follow it up with, “And if you’d sat up straight at the dinner table, none of this would be happening.” It makes all the difference.

Here we go, “You have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

You see? We have only fear to fear. Well, that and ending up living in the dumpster behind the local No Frills.

I fear that for sure. Oh, and never knowing  the pleasure of proper dental hygiene ever again.
I fear that. So those things and fear itself.

Actually this quote is not making me feel any better.

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

Having checked my most recent RRSP statement I can tell you that this is not the case.

Apparently, in fact, “A penny saved is a penny sucked into the black hole of our tanking economy.”

Has a nice ring to it though, doesn’t it?

Finally from author Henry Miller. Miller insisted that happiness lies in pursuing wine, women, song and avoiding riches.

He blew his royalties on said wine and women (the singing was free), ending up living in a hut on Malibu beach. This, in the 1950s, was the Californian equivalent of a dumpster behind the No Frills.

Miller famously said, “If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.”

In bad times and good, this gives me hope.

– Anne Hines is an author and humour writer. She has written three novels and one collection of nonfiction humour.