Irish writer, Joe O’Connor has been appearing on RTE’s (Ireland’s national radio station – akin to the BBC) Drivetime in recent weeks with some witty, inspiring and uplifting poetry.

His beautiful words perfectly illustrate how an economic recession or depression is not the ‘end of the world’ rather simply a period of slower or declining economic growth.

While O’Connor’s poem is focused on Ireland and the end of the Celtic Tiger, the sentiments expressed are universal and have relevance to people throughout the western world suffering from the early stages of the looming recessions.

Unfortunately, recessions can bring hard times to people materially – with some people losing jobs and occasionally even their homes.

However, in the grand scheme of things nothing changes with regard to the most important things in the majority of people’s lives – their family, friends, nature, music, art, poetry, writing, comedy and the simple things in life like a walk on a pier and a beautiful sunset.

All of these – no recession can take away.

Indeed our obsession with money, status, status symbols and “keeping up with the Jones’” and blind pursuit of wealth in recent years may have distracted us from these more important joy bringing parts of our lives. Greed and materialism are dangerous addictions and can blind us from the beauty of simple everyday things – cool creamy pints of Guinness, the beauty of nature, uplifting art and music and the pure joy that the company of close friends and family can bring.

O’Connor points out while we may suffer an economic recession – we live in a peaceful country, not threatened by war or tsunamis or starvation.

As the Irish, UK and U.S. economies continue to deteriorate it will be important to focus on these many positive, joyful and uplifting parts of our lives. A child’s smile, the smell of autumn leaves and the beautiful colours of autumn are more important than GDP, GNP or any other measure of economic growth. Let us always keep that in mind.

The excellent podcast, read by O’Connor himself, can be listened to here.

Mark O’Byrne
The Gold Blog