We're all Gonna Die... Wait

We're in a recession. There's no doubt about it, and most folks are getting tired of hearing it. You know the song and dance: It's only going to get worse before it gets better, the world is going to see some scary changes in power, the whole deal. Let's be realistic, however, before we swallow the shotgun whole before we can even pull the trigger. While nervousness is important in specific amounts, it is also a strong liability when we allow it to control our decisions. Because the United States was nervous, it got involved in multiple conflicts that it should not have. Because I was nervous, I missed that just because Prudentius' narrations sound like the Bible doesn't mean they're the same thing, and I ruined my Major Authors final last semester. Because the control guy in the sound booth at Saturday Night Live was nervous, Ashley Simpson's lip-syncing career was cut hilariously short. In essence, when we're nervous, mistakes happen.
Where the typical American is at right now, the world is a scary place, and nervousness is a typical, acceptable reaction to that. But lets not let that get out of control. We need to face the facts and actually look at the bright side of things over the dull.
These conclusions may seem a bit over reactive or unfair, but let me tell you where they came from. This morning, over a particularly delicious cherry danish breakfast, I was reading the free magazine that come with the Sunday edition of the Boston Globe, a truly fantastic publication, called either Globe or Boston... I can't remember. A particular article by a columnist named, I believe, Tom Kearns discusses the inability for people to better themselves during a recession. While I can agree that it is difficult for people to maintain the lifestyle that they maintained before the recession began, I cannot simply lose my faith in human beings to be able to better themselves in any situation. I find Kearns' conclusions highly insulting to the human race, as they seem to be reduced to beings with the inability to think as sophisticatedly as we do. For example, if a school of fish live in a bowl with plenty of room, and then because of thir owners inability to cope with the economy, leave them on the sidewalk, and the water slowly drains out of the bowl due to evaporation, then I would expect those fish to, once they have too little room to comfortably live next to one another, duke it out or panic and make their situation worse.
Now, of humans were in a similar situation, say, oh I dunno, their monetary system was draining slowly but surely, I would not expect to see them spasming and flopping their tails in panic. Rather, I would expect them to make the necessary cuts to their way of life and develop a workable solution to their issues. Defined by our ability to work together and to rationally work our way out of these situations, humans are some of the only living beings that deserve that destinction, but deserve it they do.
So rather than being so preoccupied with getting out of our troubles, I believe that we will have time to slow down our lives and to realize the good things that we have already. These are the good things that can come from a recession, and to imagine that the human race will behave in no other way than to panic and flail is to not have an accurate understanding of our cognitive abilities.