It’s been only six years or so since we were attacked on September 11.
Seems longer doesn’t it?
And more than once, I’ve heard people wonder out loud why such a long time has passed without any further serious assaults on our country.
Because for months after 9/11, all we heard was that we needed to be prepared for the next attack and the next. Because these evil people meant business.
Yet, over six years later, nothing.
And if time hasn’t healed, it has, at least, dimmed the memories.
If you lost friends or loved ones, it most likely feels like yesterday and understandably so.
But for the rest of us, the idea of terrorists destroying our way of life and filling us with uncertainty, insecurity and even despair, has faded back into the shadows of our daily lives. And the terrible images of that day are no longer front page news or even front and center in our thoughts as we go about our business.
We have other things on our mind.
For instance…
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A week ago, Joshua Hager was despondent. Laid off by a mortgage company, he has looked for jobs ranging from bank teller to risk analyst. He was sending out as many as 10 resumes a day but was getting barely a nibble from employers or recruiters.
"It's always flowed for me," said Hager, 29, who discovered his love of math and finance in high school in Proctorville, Ohio, about three hours southeast of Columbus. "I've always had a job and every time I changed jobs, it was for advancement. Now, it's like 'What do I do with myself because I can't wait for that next step.' "
Hager has joined nearly 125,000 others on Wall Street and at mortgage firms and other financial companies who received pink slips since the start of 2007. It seems that nearly every week another financial firm lets go of thousands of workers at all levels. With the market flooded, it's hard for the unemployed to land a job, experts said.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- With little college education and a sporadic work history, Jessica McGreevy was thrilled to join the red-hot real estate industry in late 2005, landing a receptionist job at a mortgage bank in a Long Island suburb about 45 miles east of New York City.
Eager to learn new skills, the single mother of two worked her way up to a position as a loan opener. She was making $32,000 and had her eye on a better-paying loan processor job. By last October, she was able to move her family out of a rented house they shared with her parents into a place across the street.
"I was making more money than I had ever made," said McGreevy, 31. "I was good at what I did. There was a lot of opportunity for advancement."
The week after she moved, she was laid off and became another victim of the great mortgage meltdown.
Though she's now willing to take a job in any field, McGreevy says she can't find one that pays more than her $325 weekly unemployment check when she factors in the cost of day care. She's spent the last six months scouring online help wanted ads, attending job fairs and sending out well over 100 resumes. She received barely any responses until last week, when she went on three interviews.
The problems in America's economy, which surfaced last year in the housing market, are spreading. The labor market is tightening across the board and it's increasingly difficult for the jobless to find any work, much less a position with a comparable paycheck.
It’s been six plus years since the terrorists blatantly attacked us and began what looked to be the first wave of destroying our way of life and filling us with uncertainty, insecurity and even despair.
It occurs to me that some people may have stopped wondering why it’s been so long without another assault.
And some people may be thinking that the terrorists don’t have to do a thing to fill our lives with uncertainty, insecurity and even despair.
Because it seems like lately our own government is doing a pretty good job of it themselves.
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