I Never Recovered from 2008

And I don't think I'm the only one

I realized today that I never recovered from 2008. The year started off fantastically. In May, my wife and I welcomed our second child. In July, my digital media business was on track for its best year ever. The future looked bright. The world was my oyster. I signed a three-year lease on my studio, assuming full responsibility for an expense that I had previously shared with colleagues. I financed the purchase of a camcorder that featured state-of-the-art HDV technology.

Then, a bunch of bankers blew up the world.

My clients got scared. Hell, everyone got scared. The projects stopped; every business in America held its breath. But the exhale never came.

Months went by, and things didn't get better. They got worse and worse. From big chain stores to small mom-and-pop operations, doors everywhere were shutting permanently. The Great Recession had hit.

It hurt. Badly. The landlady wouldn't let me out of the lease, threatening to sue me if I moved out or failed to pay the rent. HDV technology turned out to be a misfire - a transitional form between SD and HD that most people don't even remember. Like so many others, I was overextended, trapped, and bleeding. I felt like an idiot and a failure.

The next three years were torture. When I finally moved out of that space and made the last payment on the now-obsolete camera, I swore I would never sign another piece of paper that obligated me in that way again.

My business never got back on track. Eventually, I called it quits and entered the workforce (at the bottom of the ladder, because when you've been your own boss, employers don't trust that you'll stay, and you don't have a skill set that aligns with conventional jobs).

The details of my story are unimportant. But the lesson I learned - the message that got encoded into my bones - was this: “Play it safe. Don't trust anyone or anything outside your immediate control. Ambition and optimism lead to disaster. You're never going to amount to anything, so just stay small and protect yourself.”

Only now, almost two decades later, am I starting to recognize how deep my scars are, and how those messages have affected me.

And yet, I know I'm lucky. Today, I have a good job at an institution I believe in. My marriage survived. I'm okay. None of that came easily.

I wonder how many of you who lived through 2008 have your own version of this story? How many of you carry your own heartache and trauma, your own inner voices that try to keep you safe by holding you back? How many of you have realized that the Great Recession wasn't just a financial crisis, it was a psychological one?

I have no solutions, no insights to offer. But I have a little bit of awareness now, and that's something.