“Is It a Recession?” is a Less Important Question

… than what actions we can take to change our current economic circumstances.

As humans, we love to name and define the various and infinite parts of our world. And yet sometimes, we become so overly attached to the labels that we create through the process that we make them the supreme barometer of what we determine as our “reality.” The current discussion of whether we are in a recession gives us a valuable opportunity to understand the benefits and drawbacks of this tendency.

Our natural inclination to define things is clearly important because it helps us communicate much more efficiently with each other. If we didn’t have a word for a “book,” we might have to say “that rectangular object with separate thin slices of a tree that have black marking on it, which represent labels for parts of our world and which taken together express and explain a story or ideas.” Even then, we might not fully get across what a book really is and we will have also used a lot of words that would need further defining. So instead, we make it easier on ourselves and create labels, each of which defines a part of our world that possesses certain characteristics.

Also, when we define what something is, we can more easily study it. If we didn’t have a definition for what a book is and what it is not, we wouldn’t be able to separate books out from other parts of our world in order to study them. For instance, without having a definite difference between a book and a magazine, how would we be able to study the difference between them, the differences between how readers use them, etc. So definitions not only help us communicate about our world, they also help us to understand our world intellectually.

But the tendency to define things can also be severely limiting, especially for more complex ideas, and in this article, I will highlight two main limitations. First, when we define something too rigidly, we tend to neglect paying attention to important parts of our world that do not currently fit our definition. In this way, the definition limits our scope of awareness, and we can then miss out on something we need to look at. Second, when we hold too strongly to a definition, we tend to get caught up in the definition and divert our energy from taking real action unless, or until, it meets our criteria. And when you are basing your actions on a definition, you can’t know whether to act until it has already happened! You are therefore setting yourself up for failure because you can’t do what makes humans so empowered and free – the ability to reflect on a current situation, apply what we have learned and what we are learning, and take action in advance to create a change that remedies our past mistakes.

Let’s start by using an example that is a bit more personal: the label of “clinical depression.” In order to be “diagnosed” with clinical depression, someone must experience five out of nine specific symptoms and do so for a majority of the time over the course of at least two weeks. Briefly, the symptoms are: depressed mood; loss of interest/pleasure in activities; significant weight/appetite changes; significant sleep issues; agitated or slowed behavior; fatigue; thoughts of hopelessness; reduced ability to think, concentrate, or make decisions; and suicidal thoughts. There are other stipulations as well, but rather than making it too complex, we will focus on this part of the diagnosis.

Now the specific definition of clinical depression certainly makes it somewhat easier to scientifically study it. If we did not “draw the line” somewhere, then we would find it significantly more difficult to discover the core factors that play into depression because, if anyone with a mildly sad mood for a short period of time could be defined as “depressed,” then there would be a lot of difficulty in finding clear differences between people who are “depressed” and those who are not.

Also, when I use the terms “clinical depression,” because we have defined it, we have a clearer idea of what we are talking about – we have a common understanding. But when we need to move beyond the vague concept of “clinical depression” and need to speak about and deal with specific people, then the label becomes very restricting and potentially harmful.

Do we only need to take action if we are clinically depressed? Are our depressive issues somehow not as important if they don’t measure up? What if we have four of the nine symptoms instead of five? What if we are not sure about two of the symptoms because we don’t know if they are significant enough to fit the mold? What if certain issues have been with us all of our lives, and so we are not sure if it relates to the specific depressive episode?

I guess one of the bigger questions would have to be whether our life experiences only amount to a list of symptoms, or whether they are important enough to reflect on and then act upon regardless of how we define them? Another important question would have to be: If someone’s symptoms do not fit the definition, if they are only seen as “minor,” how can we be sure that they are not the beginning signs of something that is building and that will become “major” if we don’t take actions to resolve them now?

This is the dance between our intellect and our intuition, and we are playing out this dance in relation to our current economic conditions. Our intellect enjoys and also has the natural ability of breaking down, defining, studying, and analyzing life’s different “parts” and does so over time. Our intuition experiences life as a whole and responds to the moment of now. Both are important, and extremes are what tend to get us into trouble…

Regarding our economy, realize that “recession” is also just a word, a label, a symbol that represents a certain kind of economic experience. Economists have different measurements for this label, and those measurements are important for the scientific studies of the intellect, but when it comes to dealing with this moment in time, whether or not we are in a recession is more probably the least important of our concerns. The facts show that we are clearly experiencing a certain “trend” in a certain “direction” and this trend has become a “problem” for many people. Perhaps the time has now come to balance our intellectual extremism and move beyond our discussion of whether it is a “recession,” instead enacting more substantive resolutions that treat our weaknesses at their source.

The word “recession” relates to the verb “recede,” which symbolizes the action of “pulling back.” Have various key parts of our economy “receded?” If you went around and asked specific people about what they are currently experiencing, do you think that there economic conditions have “pulled back?” This is the power of our intuition. It does not get too caught up in the numbers and definitions of our intellect. It gets a feeling for the current situation and understands the trends based on our sensory experience. Intellect then balance intuition by keeping a perspective of what happens over time and relating these times to other times. But these times are also different than other times, which is why our intellect is ultimately limited.

The purpose of this article is not to make specific suggestions for what we can or should do. And I will certainly acknowledge that some urgent actions have been taken. But I will also point out that, when looking at the actions that are not being taken, it seems that, from political leaders to business owners to financial market investors, many people are refraining from taking corrective actions until they hear that final, definitive pronouncement that we are indeed in a recession – an experience that will be no shocking news to many people in this country. They understand that reality without having to do any analysis because they are currently experiencing it!

So I will repeat what was stated earlier: If you wait to take corrective actions until an experience has met the criteria for your definition, then you won’t be acting in advance and, by the time you know that you should have acted, you will already be in the mess that you were measuring. These times are a call to get out of being so much in our heads and get more into hearts. They are a call to come down from the scientific theory of numbers and relate more to the sensations of our present experience. And this call is not just something that relates to our economy and this recession. It relates to other labels as well…

How do you know you are “in love?” What does it mean to be “wealthy?” When do we claim ourselves to be “ill?” What does it take to be “joyful?” How do we fulfill “the meaning of our lives?” Do we come to experience these labels only through tabulations, numbers, and meeting certain criteria? Do we only know that we are on our way, moving up or down the path of progress, through what the statistics tell us? Or can we feel something now, know where we are currently going, and understand the need to change now?

There are clear patterns that we are remaking. There have been clear signs that we have been neglecting. And there are clear factors that still exist in the silence beneath the highly unimportant discussions of whether or not we are in a recession. Listen to the voices piercing through that silence. It comes from both within and without.

To learn more about intellect, intuition, and humanity,

and how they relate to the trends of our changing world,

you can purchase Thriving at the Brink of Disaster at:

www.inspiringrevolutions.com/thriving.php

To learn more about leadership and this election,

you can purchase The Makings of a President at:

www.inspiringrevolutions.com/presidentbook.php

To begin applying the ideas in this article to your own life, answer the questions below:

- Think of the three of the more prominent areas of your life: relationships, health, and wealth. In those areas, when in your past have you avoided dealing with an issue that worsened because it wasn’t “bad enough” to call it (or define it as) a “problem” yet?

- What actions could you have taken in advance to prevent the problem from worsening?

- How did your inner definition of what constituted a “problem” that was worth acting on prevent you from seeing solutions that you could easily institute into your life (and probably more easily institute if you done so earlier)?

- What had caused you to avoid your current experience, and how can you change that now?

- What issues are you experiencing, but avoiding, now?

- What would have you define it as “bad enough” to be a “problem” that is worth taking action on?

- What solutions are you not seeing or instituting because the current situation doesn’t meet your criteria for changing your avoidance into proactive change?

- Where in your life is your attachment to labels having you miss the actual experience of life? To get you started, just think of labels like being: “in love,” “attractive,” “wealthy,” “successful,” “depressed,” “joyful,” “sick,” or “healthy.”