How bad is it already, really?

It is a strange feeling to sit in a cafe, reading of all the co-operation negotiations and layoffs, and seeing the empty business spaces for rent next to the cafe. Multiple empty spaces right in the center of a growing and “prospering” city! Are we up for a real depression and I’ll see my life quality to drop radically in the near future, or will it pass? Is this the same every time when something bad happens - it is not a radical over night change, but a series of smaller changes that end up in ruins.

In a sense we might already be in ruins, you just don’t know it yet.

We are so used to good times at IT that the reality may hit hard, if things don’t start getting better. Is there something else I could be doing for a living? Hardly. Should I start planning that? Difficult to say. Digitalization will not disappear, but the salaries and the status of developers may drop. It would be good to be saving money anyhow, maybe my time of spending reglessly is over.

I have been considering buying a flat, but I don’t know about that. It would mean more stress over money, but on the other hand would help me get safer in the end. Living alone is expensive and a risk in multiple ways - if one gets laid off or gets seriously sick, for example. Getting sick is not cheap even in a country like this where healtcare is “free”. Especially if you don’t have anyone to take you to the hospital if you need to go there often and can’t manage by yourself. Something I have learned recently when one of my relatives got seriously ill.

But to what end I would be collecting wealth? I might die in a few years anyway. So the apartment should be nice enough for me to want to live there right now. And it must not be too expensive or else I’ll need to adjust my living too much. Right now I spend a lot of money to go out, get new clothes, buy devices, etc. I want to be going out to see and meet new people, but maybe it could be done cheaper as well, and I definitely do not need as many devices as I have now. I might want to have a proper place to invite people over too, but I hardly have people I could invite over. I guess that is just something I should also work towards if I want to achieve it. But once again it might be better to first try to find those people and then consider a better apartment, if the current one doesn’t do.

Yes so my thoughts are quite vain, but I bet they often are even during the bad times. You can see it in the diaries of people living during the second world war etc.: even thought there are horrible things happening, life also needs to go on, and personal everyday issues don’t just disappear.