“Let everything happen to you — beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
From 1929 to 1932, GDP in the United States declined by 30%, the stock market lost 73% of its value, and unemployment hit an all-time high of 25%. One in every four Americans did not have a job.
Over the last ten years, GDP in the United States has averaged 2.06%, and in 2021, it grew by 5.7% — its best year in over 25 years. As of August 2022, unemployment is 3.7%, and over the last ten years — including this year’s decline — the S&P 500 is up over 152%.
Being alive today is unquestionably the best time in human history to be alive. Yet, everyone focuses on how inflation is roaring higher, political divides feel more intense than ever — and as of today — the stock market has declined over 23%, officially entering a bear market.
Everything in life is a story. Typically we want to paint a picture that things are dreadful and they are only getting worse.
But most of the time, we should take advice from Rilke — if we look closely enough, things are not nearly as bad as they seem. And even if they are, we should enjoy the opportunity to be alive and to feel terror so we can appreciate the beauty that lies right around the corner.
