Hard Times

I wrote the following in Summer 2002 for a friend's 'zine; funny how relevant it seems now, in Winter 2009. Anyone else think so?

Hard Times Don’t Last…Neither Do Hard People


Anyone who has been looking for employment in the last year knows these are hard times. No amount of statistics about “new jobs” or “economic growth indicators” refutes the fact that money is short, costs are up, value is down and, plain and simple, these are hard times. Jobs are being moved overseas, companies are down-sizing, and it seems, in every way, opportunities are shrinking for people to have and keep the means to afford even modest standards of living. It can be difficult to maintain a positive outlook under such conditions, especially if one has heretofore had those means for many years, and now cannot find new work and new security. This is a situation that many of us find ourselves in, and it presents a challenge to things deeper than just our day-to-day needs: in many ways, it threatens our humanity and our ability to have hope for the days to come. It threatens our belief in goodness; it threatens our belief that we are worthy of happiness. But difficult as it seems, we need to resist the temptation to harden our hearts; we need to work to maintain our belief in each other’s basic humanity. We need to resist the pressure to become hard in our thoughts, our beliefs, our hearts.

It is easy to say these things, but they are not easy to live; repeated rejections, repeated failures to gain even the opportunity to interview, or work on trial basis, press us ever closer to the conviction that the world, or society, or the climate of the times, will not give us opportunity to prove our value, our worth. These rejections score our very being, inflict on us the death of one thousand cuts; what lotion can soothe our pains, and help us remain flexible, pliant and resilient?

Only our belief in each other, and each other’s innate goodness.

How do we maintain our flexibility? Why would we even care to struggle against the hardening effects of hard times? A metaphorical story from the past can help: the tale is told in ancient China that an oak and a reed were talking one day, and the oak asked the reed, “do you not envy me my height, my size, my massive presence?” The reed replied, “no, I don’t. I am happy as I am.” The oak scoffed at the reed, saying “you will never amount to as much as me.” The reed merely repeated “I am happy as I am.” That night a great storm arose, and high winds whipped the trees and grasses all around. Ultimately, the pressure of the wind against the oak was too great, and it cracked and fell to the ground. As the winds grew stronger and stronger, the reed bent and lay upon the ground, and let the punishing winds blow over it. When morning came, and the warming sun, the reed rose again. It leaned to the oak and said, “all your great strength didn’t help you weather that storm. Perhaps it would have been better, had you known how to give a bit.”

It isn’t easy to give up the height we may have risen to, but if we can maintain our flexibility, our resilience, we have the opportunity to rise again after the storm. If we acquire the rigidity of the oak, we may not have that hope. And while we may not attain the great height of the oak, we may be assured that such heights as we attain we can attain again, and again. We should as well note that the oak, in growing great, stands alone, separate from its fellows, while the reed is happy in the midst of its kind. Together they weather the furies and ultimately, together, rise again.

Let us not harden our hearts against each other, even to stand above the rest; let us rather think of the reed, and the strength of flexibility, and the strength in community.

Hard times don’t last, and we do best to not let them harden us, either.