A Season for Change: Lent, the Lending Meltdown, and a Way Forward

This is Part Two of yesterday’s post, “A Season for Change: The Lunar New Year and the Lending Meltdown.”

In addition to the Lunar New Year that I wrote about yesterday, another significant event began earlier this month. The Lenten season started with Ash Wednesday and will end on the Saturday before Easter. Some think of Lent as a time to make a sacrifice just for the sake of sacrificing. However, I’ve read a definition that I think is a more relevant reason for making sacrifices during Lent (or any other time): Giving up one thing so that something better can come into your life. A simple example is to give up certain foods so that you lose weight. A deeper example is to give up certain bad behaviors so that you allow healthier relationships into your life.

Whether or not you follow the Lunar New Year or Lenten traditions, they provide insight into a way forward when dealing with the housing market and the economy. They show us the first steps we should take to find a long-term solution to our roller coaster housing market and economy. These steps involve reflection, creativity, and new beginnings.

Since Lent is considered a time to reflect on our patterns and then letting go of the unhealthy ones, we might reflect on how we have participated individually as well as collectively (through both industry practices and government policies) in encouraging the manic highs of the boom time that now require us to experience depressing lows. And once we determine how we have individually and collectively contributed to this unhealthy manic-depressive cycle, the characteristic associated with this current Lunar New Year (creativity, new beginnings, new ideas and methods of approaching situations) could help us move forward. Using our creativity to discover new ways of approaching the housing market and the economy could lead us to a healthier long-term situation. A new beginning is called for if we want to break this manic-depressive cycle.

Identifying the ways we have individually and collectively participated in the current unhealthy housing situation and the steps we need to take to break this manic-depressive cycle will provide much fodder for future posts. For now, let the reflection begin.

Graphics Courtesy Purdue University