Saturday, September 19, 2009

Bold Living: A Lesson from the Recession

A curious little discovery. Being a writer and so far not a bestselling one, I usually earn less than friends who are not in the arts. My car rolled off the line in '92, etc. I never thought that embarrassed me at all. It's merely a cost of my calling in life, and most of the time worth the trade.

But during this past year of recession with almost everyone economizing, I've discovered that other people's scrimping feels very companionable to me. For one thing, I notice that I now compare notes with friends on the subject more than I used to.

So maybe the social aspect of my miserliness did bother me, changing my behavior in ways I wasn't aware of. It's interesting to find I was unsettled by something without knowing it -- and unconsciously restricting myself. Now I'm wondering what else might be working on me that way, without my knowing it.



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