Is everything going downhill?

I’m a planner. A big planner. With some exceptions of course. I plan only long-term. I have my 5-year, 10-year, and 15-year plan down solid. I guess I can add monthly and weekly stuff as well. But that was back when everything just seemed so simple and so easy. That was way back in the day when everything seemed so stable and so secure. That happened to be only 3 weeks ago.

The financial crisis that is occurring right now is not only scary, but it’s changed everything for me. I can’t take things for granted as I had in the past. I always assumed that it’d be easy to always find a job, financially I’d be fine and things would always go the way I’d imagined if I just worked hard at it. I’ve always been so optimistic about everything, but I think that’s been changing a bit.I’m pretty sure all the optimism in the world isn’t going to stop the markets from crashing.

I’m nervous and I’m holding my breath just like the rest of the millions of Americans. I hate having the feeling that things might not be O.K. completely in the near future. I hate having to change my plans just because I’m not even completely sure what’s going to happen tomorrow. I don’t mean job wise, but I mean everything else. What if food all of a sudden skyrockets, rent becomes ridiculous, people who have had everything all of a sudden just might not have anything at all?

It’s definitely a scary world out there. I used to always believe that it was kind of the baby boomer generation that handled the economy in a very selfish way. But now I realize that I had a lot to do with it as well. I took everything I had for granted and just assumed that everything would work out in the end. I planned to a certain extent…I guess I didn’t really do a good enough job at it. There’s too much left up in the air these days.

I can watch the news and listen to all the theories about what we should possibly be doing to stop this crisis. Should I be that concerned or should I not? Right now…I’m concerned. When I see the stock market crumble day after day, I’m pretty sure I should be concerned.

I’m not sure what I should be planning on or what I should be doing tomorrow, let alone in 5 years. Maybe that’s what my problem was- karma, the universe’s way to tell me not to plan anymore. To just go with the flow. Boy that’s a hard lesson to learn. It’s just this whole uncertainty thing that’s going to drive me crazy.