The 'Fuck It Phenomenon'
I'm "giving the recession the finger" over at Salon:
As I was lying beneath a lustrous sun last week, with a top-shelf daiquiri in my hand, at a luxury resort that I couldn't afford in good economic times, I thought to myself: So what if we're on the brink of the next Great Depression? This was a good decision. [...]Read it all here.There'd be plenty of time for boiling raccoon bones into soup broth, I rationalized, should a full-fledged depression hit, but for now I was going to enjoy my drink and watch the azure waves crest into gold. I was on a beach in the lovely town of Tulum, Mexico. And I was relaxed. This was my "last hurrah" vacation. [...]
"I call it the 'fuck-it phenomenon,'" said Matt Wallaert, a social psychologist with the financial advice site Thrive. "Everywhere you go the media tells you that things aren't going to get better any time soon," he said. "But if you feel like life has dealt you a bad hand, it's easy to say, 'Fuck it, I deserve this.'"