Nightglow Window

Getting Off The Doom Parade

A post lifted from my day job at surfexpo.com.

Today dawned clear and cool and incredible here in Carlsbad, California and there was no way I could stay inside. So before the sun cleared Palomar Mountain to the east I was pedaling south down Pacific Coast Highway, watching the fresh Santa Ana winds groom the fading north swell.

(Sorry, I just couldn’t find a way to work “west” into that last sentence.)

What made the bike ride especially fun was the fact that my route coincided with the Bike MS charity ride, which featured thousands and thousands of friendly co-pedalers—a veritable river of lycra. (Eek gads!)

It was great to meet new people, blow past them once they began to bore me (or vice versa), and (for the most part) mindlessly follow the crowd like the lemming I am.

But it was this last part that really surprised me, the allure of following the herd. When I reached mile 26, the MS 150 crowd veered right and descended down into La Jolla and I found myself really wanting to follow them. (It wasn’t quite a yearning, but it was more than an inclination.) It actually took some concentration to pull away from the pack and start my lonely ride back home.

Now with only my boring self to keep me company, I let my mind drift away. But instead of visions of bikinis and tropical islands I thought about last week’s turmoil in the stock market and the lingering questions about the availability of credit—yeah, I’m kind of a tool.

I realized that—just like leaving the herd on this bike ride—being a contrarian can be tough. It’s tough to read the news, watch the turmoil, and not be pulled down under the weight of it all.

I visited a well-known specialty retailer last week who has an incredible single-store location, an affluent customer demographic, a meticulously merchandised store, and great relationships with major vendors—in short, everything you could want, the full monty of retail goodness. And even he was nervous, as I’m sure every retailer must be by this point.

But the sad truth was, talking to him about the grim headlines and deflated bottom lines of our retirement portfolios was far easier than trying to be the relentless optimist. It was more interesting to talk about what we hope doesn’t happen than what we hope actually does.

In the wake of the incredible events of last week, I’m afraid we’ve become a nation of gawkers, craning our necks to see the latest Wall Street pile up, when what we really need is to keep our eyes on the road ahead.

Perhaps it's time to peel off from the doom parade.

I, for one, am ready to turn off CNBC for a while and focus instead on the advantages this god-awful market just might provide over the long term. There’s no guarantee that being the optimistic contrarian will work, but I’m quite sure it’s a change that will do my attitude good.