The Emergence Of The People Who Worry All Of The Time

The so-called, "great recession" changed a lot of things for a lot of people. For sure, we have always had unemployment. Mortgage foreclosure has always been an unfortunate economic fact of life.

But in the past few years America has seen the emergence of a group that we could almost add to the list on the economic strata.

Let's see: we have the wealthy, the middle class and the poor..yeah I know, the media likes to call them, "the economically disadvantaged." I came from that group. The poor know who they are. But I think we can add to the list "the people who worry all of the time."

And these people who worry all of the time may be poor, or they may be part of the middle class. Some few may also be wealthy, ( though I doubt it). The people who worry all of the time, it seems to me, have grown in size. By a lot.

They are those who have lost a job and cannot find another. Some have lost a job more than once. Some of the people who worry all of the time are also or have already been...foreclosed.

When will I be hired? Will I find another good job? When I find it, will I able able to perform in a new environment with new people and bosses the way I am expected to? Some of the people who worry all of the time are still working. Does the boss like me and appreciate me? Will the company see me as an asset and not a liability? Will they keep me on? For the jobless who have not found a new job...how will I pay the bills? The clock is ticking on my unemployment benefits. If you have been or are being foreclosed...where will I live? Will I be out on the street? How will I afford to live? They worry all of the time.

It is not hard to understand these people who worry all of the time. It certainly is not hard to find them. They are all around us.

It seems, sadly, one of the casualties of the economic downturn has been optimism. Sometimes, I will look at an old movie from the recent past, say five or ten years ago, when the economy was much, much better, (and the jobless rate was four or five percent). You might see someone in those movies who lose their job. And the attitude seemed to be, oh, well, just move on to the next job. Because that optimism was there and we knew that if something breaks, we would just fix it. But all of those layoffs and all of those foreclosures and all of that bad news melted that optimism for many of us.

Demographers might have a hard time measuring the size of this group of people who worry all of the time. That's because some approach life by keeping the famous, "stiff upper lip." "I'll manage...somehow". And as I said before, the people who worry all of the time transcend social and economic classes.

I guess the one thing the people who worry all of the time are hoping for, beyond finding a job, or paying their mortgage or their bills, is to just be able to believe that tomorrow, and the next day and the day after that, will not be worse than today. And hey! Might be even better!

Then they wouldn't have to worry all of the time.