Call it 'economic opportunity'

Tightening our belts might ease some consumers' minds, burdens

An auto industry on the brink of collapse, failing banks, mortgages on everything from bungalows to mega-malls going into default, 401Ks plummeting in value, job insecurity running rampant -- all of this on top of the already stressful holiday season! Could things possibly get worse?

Or could they possibly be better?

Amid the gloom and doom over the current economic crisis are voices proclaiming this isn't such a bad thing. In fact, they say, it may actually be the start of a long overdue correction of consumerism gone wild.

"A tight holiday season financially could end up being a very rich holiday season emotionally and creatively," says Judith Barr, a Connecticut psychotherapist and author of the self-help book "Power Abused, Power Healed."

"I think this is a real opportunity to get back to who we are," says psychologist Toni Galardi. "I think there's an opportunity for us to get a lot more creative with our lives."

Psychologist Nancy Molitor says she is seeing clients relieved to be cutting up their credit cards and tightening their belts.

"What I'm seeing is a greater calmness," says Molitor, whose practice is in Chicago. "Once you go on this financial diet, once you start paying in cash, it's calming."

What Molitor sees as the new mantra for a post spend-at-will America:

"It's not cool to spend a lot of money."

It's also not an uncommon position for Americans.

"We go through these cyclical phases," says Galardi, who practices in the Los Angeles area. "In the roaring '20s we got out of control, then we had the Depression. In the '50s we had keeping up with the Joneses. Then in the '60s we had children overthrowing their parents' values."

The recovery period we find ourselves in today, she says, relates back to the early 1980s, "when our consumption started to get more and more extreme."

"Unconsciously," Molitor says, "people have been feeling out of control. We've been buying homes we couldn't afford, tapping into home equity that was unrealistic. People have been feeling vaguely uneasy."

Now with a rapidly emerging sense that we must live within our means, that we're going to have to live within a budget, there's a growing sense of relief.

"It's human nature to need structure," says Molitor. "It's fine to enjoy the party and overindulge at times. But after a period of time, it's uncomfortable, even to adults.

"Sometimes we need the structure of someone telling us, 'Stop that!' "

All in this together

When the business climate began to deteriorate in late summer, ATCOM Business Telecom Solutions in Research Triangle Park did what it had done during the recession of the '90s and the dot-com bust at the beginning of this decade: It got all its employees together to talk about it.

"We had an all-hands-on-deck meeting with all 75 employees from our three offices," says ATCOM President and CEO David Finch. "But rather than get up there and pontificate, we asked them what was going on out there, out in the field."

That led to a discussion about what the company -- the employees -- could and couldn't control. They couldn't control the economy, they agreed, but they did identify five things they could control, including their work ethic, attitude and effectiveness at networking.

A new company credo was coined: "If we do all five areas better than our competitors, we will get more than our fair share in 2009."

A key lesson for surviving turbulent times: communicate.

"What we're seeing," says Bruce Clarke, CEO of the Raleigh-based human resources firm Capital Associated Industries, "is people trying to remove as much anxiety as possible by being as straightforward as possible."