"When the going gets tough, the tough get going." -- Joseph P. Kennedy

These are tough economic times, and we are all waiting for things to begin to turn around. That could take a while yet. Many are being challenged in ways they never have been before.

Some experience job layoffs, salary rollbacks, and shrinking investments. At home, there may be a lot of "belt-tightening" required. Luxuries may have to go. Even some necessities may have to be pared back.
We have some choices as to how we respond to these changing times. We can either go into panic mode, becoming super-stressed and getting depressed, or we can develop a survival strategy. Yes, things may not be as good as they once were, but we must remember also that they are not as bad as they could be.

In the Western world we have become accustomed to a very blessed way of living. Our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world suffer from starvation, lack of medical care, war, violence and oppression. Mothers lose their children, and children witness their parents being killed. Women are raped, and men are tortured.

While we may be experiencing what for us are tough times, we can hardly say we are suffering. So we may just need to buck up and deal with our situation. If those in troubled parts of the world can get up and face each day, so can we.

Just as there can be "corrections" in the stock market, perhaps there are also "corrections" in our way of living. My Mother grew up during the Great Depression, and no one can recycle, reuse, invent and create the way she can. She has been doing this all her life, way before it was cool to do so.

She has always planted gardens, built her own weaving loom, created functional pottery, sewed, knitted, made her own Christmas cards and cooked everything from scratch. I may have a Graduate degree, but I always knew my Mom could be completely self-sufficient if she had to be, while I would scarcely survive.

Perhaps we all need to learn a little more about going back to the basics. Maybe this is a wake-up call, both for us, and our children who grew up knowing everything would be provided for them with very little effort.

Tough times? Yes. But maybe we all needed to toughen up a little anyway.

Gwen Randall-Young is an author and award-winning Psychotherapist. For permission to reprint this article, or to obtain books or cds, visit www.gwen.ca.