Stories for my friends - Tips for strangers.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

why read the paper?

Today as I sat down to a cup of coffee, eager to begin my day but unable to get in to the office without my keys, I scanned the half sheet of paper in my pocket outlining our Christmas Eve service. Instantly bored, the only choice I had was to pick up the half-read (and most likely discarded) USA Today to my left. Overall, nothing of note lay within, save in one subtle statistic.

Poll:
March 2009 - Is now a good time to find a satisfying job? Nearly 65% said yes.
December 2009 - Same question. Nearly 90% said no.

At first, this was a little discouraging. Clearly I'm a minority in my thought process here. After a moment, though, I realized that the people the USA Today polled are my competition (we should hope this was a representative sample, but we can almost certainly presume it to be a biased pool of timid, middle-class Americans). No matter what the demographic represented, I take courage in it. If most people are afraid to do what I am doing now, I am guaranteed that at least those people are probably waiting "it" out. Times of great uncertainty yield great opportunity - this time in our history has fantastic potential for growth.

Another encouraging thought. The second year of a bear market sees a gain of more than 10% in the stock market, on average. That's not a bad deal, either. Hope!

Looking forward to seeing the promises of God kept throughout another year in 2010.

3 comments:

Sarah said...

Sorry you didn't have a new issue of the Economist to enjoy instead.

Sarah Elizabeth said...

a bear market would never let you down

Tamara said...

Love it! Seize the day!