If you’ve found yourself thinking, “this time feels different,” you’re not alone. It does feel different. And in many ways, it is. But the crucial question remains: Is this current state permanent?
While the initial flurry of market news may have peaked in April, the ongoing shifts and their reverberations make now an ideal moment for reflection. Understanding the patterns of the past can offer valuable perspective on the recent volatility and help us navigate what's to come.
Indeed, history teaches us a powerful lesson: while every period of upheaval feels unique in the moment, none have endured indefinitely. To illustrate, let's explore some pivotal moments from the past that also felt profoundly different, uncertain, and unlike any others before them:
- The Post-War Reorder (1940s-1950s): Imagine the world emerging from global conflict. Nations faced the immense task of rebuilding, transitioning vast war economies to peacetime, and managing new global dynamics. Recessions in 1945, 1948-49, 1953-54, and 1957-58 each brought fears of a return to depression as demobilization, shifting consumer demand, the Korean War's end, and even an "Asian Flu" pandemic created deep uncertainty about future stability.
- The "Stagflation" Stunner (1970s): This decade baffled economists. The Nixon Shock unpegged the dollar from gold, then OPEC oil embargos in 1973 and 1979 sent energy prices soaring. For the first time, economies faced "stagflation"—a painful, previously unthinkable mix of high unemployment and runaway inflation, leading to deep recessions and a crisis of confidence in established economic policies.
- Debt, Crashes, and Shifting Tides (1980s): The decade opened with severe recessions (1980, 1981-82)deliberately induced to break inflation, causing immense pain but eventually working. Then, the U.S. faced the slow-burn Savings and Loan Crisis costing billions, and the shocking global "Black Monday" stock market crash of 1987 felt like a terrifying echo of 1929. Japan's booming economy also began its "Lost Decade" after its asset bubble burst.
- Globalization's Growing Pains (1990s): As the world grew more interconnected, so did its financial vulnerabilities. The Gulf War Recession (1990-91) was a more traditional oil-shock induced downturn. However, the Asian Financial Crisis (1997-98) and the Russian Financial Crisis (1998) showed how quickly financial panic could spread across borders in an increasingly globalized economy, feeling like new, uncontrollable contagions.
- The New Millennium's Shocks (2000s): The decade started with the dot-com bubble bursting (2000-01), a new kind of tech-driven mania and crash, exacerbated by the 9/11 attacks. But this was dwarfed by the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009. Triggered by a U.S. housing collapse, it morphed into a near-total meltdown of the world's financial system, the deepest crisis since the Great Depression, leaving a sense that the very foundations of modern finance were crumbling.
- Pandemics and Unprecedented Shutdowns (2020s): The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 brought a crisis unlike any other. The global economy was deliberately put into an induced coma to fight a virus, causing the sharpest, deepest (though briefest in the U.S.) recession in modern history. The sheer scale of the global shutdown and the subsequent supply chain chaos and inflationary pressures felt utterly new and profoundly disruptive.
Each of these periods brought unique anxieties and a feeling that the world had fundamentally changed, yet over time, economies adapted, systems evolved, and progress continued.
- And today? We’re navigating a unique set of challenges: persistent inflation, high interest rates, geopolitical instability, and politics that stir strong emotions from every news source. Consumer confidence is fluctuating. Markets are reacting to every policy signal, and for many people, the gap between how the headlines sound and how life actually feels is widening.
- Whether it’s rising costs, political division, or a sense that the system isn’t working the way it should—it’s understandable to feel frustrated, uncertain, or even discouraged.
The recent market volatility has been a reminder of how quickly things can shift. While some of that turbulence has settled for now, it may resurface. That’s the nature of cycles. What matters most is how we respond when it does.
So if you’re feeling unsettled, anxious, or even overwhelmed, that’s not a flaw in your thinking. That’s being human.
What matters most right now isn’t having all the answers. It’s having a process—a way to pause, reflect, and respond with intention rather than react out of fear.
This reminds me of a powerful quote from one of my favorite books—Viktor Frankl’s seminal work, Man’s Search for Meaning: "The last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” In other words: between stimulus and response, there is space. And in that space lies your power to choose.
That space is where your power lives.
For some, that may look like clarifying financial priorities. For others, it might be noticing that your stress is more about what’s happening in the world than what’s happening in your portfolio.
Either way, here’s something simple:👉 reflect on your definition of of success with this worksheet
(Or, just take a moment to ask yourself: “How am I reacting to all of this—and is that aligned with who I want to be?”)
And if you’d like someone to walk through that process with you, we're here.
Even in uncertain times, you still have agency. You still have choices. And you don’t have to navigate it alone.
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