‘Tis the Season of Hope

The Christmas season and the soon coming of a new year always bring hope. Many businesses depend heavily on the holiday season to turn a profit for the year – hence the term Black Friday.

But it’s not just businesses that are hoping for a brighter future this year. We all want to see the nation pull out of the long and damaging recession. And selfishly perhaps, we long for better days for our own financial situation.

Even though a recent Zogby poll showed 72 percent of adults say they either already consider themselves poor (20 percent) or can imagine becoming poor (52 percent), that same poll also showed that 33 percent of Americans expect their financial situation to improve a year from now. And five years from now 50 percent believe their personal financial situation will be better off.

Americans have always been optimistic. Hope – and fear – drove our ancestors to build our great nation and it continues to drive us to make the U.S. what it is.

Fear of hunger, natural elements, a lack of shelter and other enemies helped spur new ideas and those ideas created hope for the future.

Despite all our worries, Americans will still find ways to shop for gifts during the holiday season and, if it’s true about history repeating itself, we will pull out of the recession and be better off in the future.