March 2009: Hurricanes

If a hurricane doesn’t leave you dead
It will make you strong.
Don’t try to explain it, just nod your head
Breath in, breath out, move on.
Jimmy Buffett, “Breath In, Breath Out, Move On”

These lyrics come from one of my favorite Jimmy ballads (listen to the song here), and they are words that resonate loudly in our world right now.  As a professional in the “eye” of the real estate market, I discuss figurative hurricanes on a daily basis with clients.  There is no shortage of hurricanes, but in all likelihood the hurricanes we are facing won’t leave us dead.  But how will we let them leave us?  Weaker or stronger?  Jaded or wiser?

I mistakenly am hung up on trying to explain life’s unexplainable hurricanes, such as the financial hurricane surrounding us all.  Over the last several months my laissez-faire philosophy on economics has been rattled.  Contrary to my previous beliefs, I now believe freely allowing capitalist forces to take their natural course has negatively exaggerated the boom and bust of this decade’s economic cycle as the policies of few have affected the lives of many.  I have explored explanations by revisiting an extremely influential book on my economic beliefs, The Worldly Philosophers.  While I have found new insight while re-reading the chapters about Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes and other great economic minds, there are obviously no explanations.  The current financial leaders of our world don’t seem to have answers; I should expect no more from myself.  I need to learn to just “nod my head”, accept the hurricanes outside of my control, and trust in my faith rather than my logic to explain life’s conundrums at the appropriate times.

Above all else, we should adopt the title of this song into our daily lives.  While it’s important to allow our struggles to make us stronger, and our faith to make us enduring, those mantras are useless unless we can learn to “move on” from difficult times.