The Vine

Nancy Gibbs has written a wonderful essay in this week’s issue of Time, assessing our nation’s collective pain and offering a hopeful perspective that it will bring out the best, not the worst in us.

She notes that unlike past recessions, this one affects everyone. “To suffer alone is a tragedy,” she writes. “To struggle together is an opportunity, when we find out what we really care about.”

Gibbs concludes:

“Maybe as times get worse, we get better. Our pain makes us feel other people’s too; our fear lets us practice valor; we are tense, and tender as well. And among the things we can no longer afford are things we never really wanted anyway, like the solitude of snobbery, and the luxury of denial.”

Far too often the media prey on our fear and our morbid fascination with negativity (and yet we still consume it…hmmm…). When they get it right, it’s worth sharing.