"Boon" or "Blow"

What will we find, what will we be at the end of this recession? Will we do what we've always done - at least post-Depression - and breathe a big sigh of relief and go right back to living the way we were? Or will we be more like our grandparents who lived through the Depression and learn some life lessons and change our realities. A recent survey finds 60% of 18-29 year olds feel their generation "is being dealt an unfair blow" in this recession.

This blow may be that for the first time in post-WW2 history, a generation will find itself unable live a more expensive lifestyle than their parents. But that does not have to equate to a lesser lifestyle.

Perhaps it hasn't been an advantage that we've become such avid consumers that we've driven ourselves into a lifecycle of unending purchasing. We left The Jones's behind years ago. Now we have to keep up with the Buffett's. Driven by acquisitiveness, fueled by a concept that our value is greater than the sum of our salaries (at least when you factor in credit) and paid for by jobs that demanded 120% of 100% of our time.

So what's "unfair" about leaving that behind? Perhaps it is more fair that the Millenials aren't saddled with the need to be better, faster, richer than everyone else.

True, you may not have a flat panel TV in every room. But you also won't owe $3000 to Best Buy. And instead of having every member of your family scattered through the mini-mansion doing their own thing, you'll have to sit down together and compromise with each other on what to watch. Perhaps that means you'll talk more, too.

Since post-WW2 a sense of entitlement has been passed on to each new generation - the Millenials have gotten the worst of the deal. For them the entitlement came without the work ethic that had been drummed into previous generations. The X-gens and Millenials were rewarded just for showing up, given trophies for participating, learning that 'you're all winners', and led to expect that they should have all the same things their parents have - perhaps more - without taking the time their parents did to earn them. For them, this new normal will be more difficult but most important.

So, it may seem like a "blow" that maybe that dream isn't going to become reality. Maybe your first job will not pay $40,000. Maybe your first home won't be your own condo. Maybe your first car won't be given to you when you turn 16 or 17 and maybe it won't be a Mustang or Camaro.

So "blow" or "boon"? Only time and how we respond to this adversity is going to answer that question. While the majority feel cheated, some Millenials quoted in a New York Times article last weekend saw it as an opportunity - a chance to break out of a cycle of every upwardly mobile purchasing and overworking to pay for it all.

They have the attitude that helped our parents and grandparents through the adversity of wars and economic disasters like the Depression.

The most important things have no monetary value. You can't get better love or better family if you have more money to spend. You can't pick out character at the Mall and you can put all the symbols for honor that you want on your arm and still won't know what it means. My husband used to say that he would live in a refrigerator box under a bridge so long as we were together. Only now do I know that I would to.

William Wordsworth was prescient in 1807 when he wrote "The World is Too Much With Us", a poem marking the subordination of nature to the machinery of progress. Wordsworth may not have imagined a world like ours today, but his words seem singularly true nonetheless:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Getting and spending we have wasted our powers in the pursuit of owning, preening and showing up others. Establishing our importance by the size of our homes, cars and - apparently - credit lines.

Is this economy a get out of jail free card for all of us? Is it our chance to take control, identify what really matters, downsize our lives and manage our expectations. Boon or blow? I guess we'll see.