It's a Start

A couple months ago, I did the unthinkable. I created a Facebook account. My wife had amassed a following of several hundred friends on hers and was always telling me about the latest person to befriend her.

“You’d like it,” my wife would say to me in my bFB (before Facebook) days.

“I didn’t like high school when I was there,” I’d scoff. “Why would I want to relive it?”

“You could connect with your college friends,” she’d say.

“I’m in contact with everyone I want to be connected to from college.”

One day, though, I finally gave in. Truth be told, it’s not so bad. I’ve reconnected with people I haven’t thought about in years, decades even. And I’ve made new friends. Change can be good.

Facebook was a voluntary change for me. Recent circumstances have forced us all to deal with involuntary change. It’s not nearly as easy as setting up a social network account; involuntary change can be painful. Yet it can also drag us down paths we’ve known we should have started down years ago.

Change agent: Oil and gas prices

12 months ago, oil prices were on a march to $150 a barrel and companies like Exxon were enjoying successive quarters of unprecedented profit. And why not? Gas prices were the highest they’d ever been and were moving higher. Wall Street was speculating that our national and global demand for oil would only increase now that China was in the game. The turmoil in the Middle East was clearly not going to end any time soon.

But then something happened.

We decided to change. People began to carpool, take the bus, drive less, learn about hypermiling, and buy hybrid cars. As a result, the nation’s consumption of oil gradually inched downward. It wasn’t a big change, but it was a start. I still remember how thrilled I was to fill up the tank of my rental car in Houston this past Christmas to the tune of $1.36 a gallon. I couldn’t remember the last time gas prices were so low. I nearly cried.

Change agent: A failing economy

We are a nation of consumers who proudly spend more than we keep. In direct contrast to countries like Japan where 7-10 percent is the accepted minimal norm, the average U.S. family savings percentage has been in the negative for quite some time now.

But then the economic bottom fell out and nest eggs took significant hits. Thanks to charlatans like Bernie Madoff, a few were even wiped out entirely. Several senior citizens have reluctantly come to the realization that the bar for retirement has been moved a little higher.

The real estate industry, the force propping up the economy for so long, faltered and then fell flat on its face. I can remember when I was in financial advisor hell a few years ago attending business network meetings. The group’s realtor would tell us that houses, unlike stocks, were safe investments. She would tell us about the latest CNBC interview she’d watched and pass out magazine articles. In her CNBC-validated world, there was no stinkin’ bubble.

But those double-digit gains were simply too good to be true. The housing bubble, much like the ‘dot-com’ bubble that preceded it, was quite real after all. I couldn’t help but feel vindicated thinking of her as I watched John Stewart give Jim Cramer a public drubbing last week on The Daily Show.

We have been forced to change. Our savings rate, now at 3-4 percent, is still small. But it’s a start.

Change agent: Historic unemployment

We have more unemployed people in our country than we did a year ago and we all know someone who has lost their job. Our current national unemployment rate hasn’t been seen since Reagan’s early years in office. In fact, there are so many jobless that traffic congestion has visibly decreased across the country.

I was somewhat surprised to learn that more than 80% of those laid off since 2007 have been men. This means that the roles in families where the husband was the primary breadwinner and the wife stayed at home to take care of the family have reversed. Men are now asking for appreciation for what they do in the home and women are asking for recognition for the amount of time they spend outside the home. It’s like that show Wife Swap. Minus the voice-over.

But even in this, something is starting to happen. Children are spending more time with their fathers. Some families are having conversations about male and female roles. Husbands and wives are talking about how they can support one another no matter who does what.

I think it is, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing. Or at least a start.