The power of positivity

With all the news about firings, layroof and shutdowns in the business world, it's hard to crack a smile on some days. Sure, the stock market has been on an upwards trend for a week straight but even a prolonged upward climb will take weeks, even months, to translate to actual improvement.

It's easy to fall into a funk. We know that the bad news never seems to end because it's alla round us. But what if we, as a society, began to focus on the positives and simply think positively. We ourselves are all at least partially to blame for this complete economic clusterfuck. Millions of Americans looked to make a quick buck in real estate because it had been climbing at unheard of paces for many years. What those same people failed to realize is that it was just one huge bubble. We spent wildly for the last decade or more, forgetting lessons learned in the 80s and 90s. Even those who invested did so expecting double digit returns every year. When the market corrected, investors reacted wildly. Many pulled money from companies they had invested in and expected those huge returns from leaving those companies extremely strapped for capital.

I don't pretend to know anything about the economy but an interesting topic was on the news last week. It boiled down to the power of positive thinking. Yeah, nothing gets better without action but thinking positively surely can't hurt anything, can it?



So maybe it's time to look again at your bullet-riddled 401(k) and take a percentage of what's left, move that cash from those ultra safe investments such as bonds and put it back into actual companies that show some positive potential. If enough people start doing this and have some faith (along with the belief that the billions of so-called stimulus/recovery money will be properly used) there could very well be jobs being created by year's end. If we focus on the good while not ignoring the bad, a lasting economic recovery may be here sooner than we expected.

It's all about cautious optimism.

I'm optimistic, too, that with spring just around the corner, MinnPics will experience a true rebirth full of vibrant, colorful photographs from across the great state of Minnesota.