The Good Recession

The whole situation with the economy being terrible, the magazine industry in more than a slump, the wage reduction at my work, and the possibility of losing my full-time job altogether has made me a tad obsessed lately with the idea of paring down my life and belongings.

Over the course of the past couple weeks I've gone through my entire closet and given away anything and everything that I don't wear anymore or that just doesn't fit. I also went through drawers in the bathroom and took inventory of my bath and body products: which ones I could throw out, which ones I could use up, which ones I didn't even know I had.

And the obsession hasn't been limited to aesthetics. I've gone through the kitchen, my desk area, the hall closet ... and I've been getting rid of things left and right. Or I've noticed things we've run out of around the house, and I think, "Do we really need more? Does it really need to be replaced?"

During this period of time in which every other entity in the country seems to be letting go of whatever they deem superfluous, it somehow makes me feel better to do the same. I feel lighter, like I have less to keep track of, less to contend with as I go about my daily routine.

I think recessions are good in the way that they remind us that we can do without certain things. They allow us a new perspective and give us reason to re-assign value to our possessions and sometimes, even the people in our lives whom maybe we've overlooked or taken for granted.

So I'm not saying that I'm suddenly at peace with the economic crisis, I'm just saying maybe it would help to think of the situation not as a "recession," but as a "renewal."

Or, as The Boston Globe's Drake Bennett put it so eloquently in his informative article "The Good Recession," you can think of this as one of many "periodic purges that burn off dead wood and make room for new growth." (I'm melting, I'm melting...)