Thursday, April 19, 2012

Day 856

Slip sliding away. That's the way I'm feeling these days. Every week, checks for $200 or $300 dribble in, along with bills for several thousand dollars. I wonder how long you can sustain this kind of impossible math.

Luckily, I had some very good years. I don't think those days will return however. The world has fundamentally changed. I listen to all the politicians promising jobs if you'll elect them and I wonder what on earth they are thinking. You can't promise jobs in a global economy. If someone in China or India can do the job for 1/3 of what I would charge, they're going to get the job. End of story. To survive in this brave new world, you have to lower your prices to stay competitive and hope that a larger audience for your products or services will make up the difference. This strategy might work well for Coca Cola and McDonald's, but it certainly doesn't help me much. I just end up working longer and harder for less money.

It doesn't help much to fret about such things though. Once the metaphorical Pandora's Box has been opened, it can never be closed again. In an increasingly interconnected world, great economies are trying their best to equalize. It's like those science experiments in high school chemistry class where liquid in two connected containers always stayed at the same level. My economy is getting worse. Yours may be getting better. Maybe in three or four generations, everything will be wonderful, but it's not a pretty sight now.

At least I still have things to do as I slowly get poorer. I worked on some websites today. I sent out invoices like notes in a bottle and continued writing articles. The dogs did their part to keep the leaky ship afloat. They chased squirrels in the backyard.

I asked the real estate agent today why he wanted to price my rent house so low, especially when there were similar properties for sale in the same neighborhood at considerably higher prices. "Look at how long those houses have been on the market," he told me. "When a house has been on the market for 400 days, the seller just hasn't come to grips with reality yet."

I'm sure the agent is right. It's no fun to come to grips with reality. Reality can be downright depressing. That's why I'm going to try the trendy restaurant my advertising friends like for breakfast tomorrow. Maybe they'll have a great breakfast that will perk up my entire day. Maybe if I continue going to this place, it will become "my" trendy restaurant. Stranger things have happened.

Marley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day