The story line in the Western movie is a familiar one. The family, full of both anticipation and anxiety, has left the comforts and security of their Eastern settlement to join the wagon train for the trek to Oregon or California or some other destination. The lure is abundant and inexpensive land, perceived riches, a fresh beginning, or a simple wanderlust.

The family, to offset their anxiety, has packed their wagon with a few heirlooms along with the vital provisions. Mementoes of home that they’re taking with them; links to their past that they can’t imagine leaving behind.

The plot usually thickens. Somewhere out on the parched Great Plains or up in the rough passage of the mountains, faced with needing to lighten their load, cornered by the hard choice of survival or else, the precious heirlooms are finally dumped by the wayside.

I’ve thought of that film image recently. It seems an appropriate analogy for what many families and small businesses have faced or are facing during these difficult economic times. The homes that have been abandoned to foreclosure. All of the Main Street stores that have closed their doors. The numerous bankruptcies.

These consequences have been brought on by various causes. Layoffs or lost jobs. Dwindling housing values. Predatory mortgages. Bad personal decisions (i.e. ‘getting in over your head’).  A shrinking number of shoppers. Lack of available operating capital. High credit card debt.  Customers not able to pay their bills which create a domino effect from business to business.

These are parts of the micro or personal economy. On the larger, macro stage there was the causes and repercussions of the bursting of the housing bubble a few years ago. The Wall Street meltdown in the fall of 2008 and the ensuing global recession. The bankers shutting off loans for would-be buyers of automobiles and the resulting near demise of General Motors and Chrysler.

To borrow that wagon-train image… thousands upon thousands have found themselves on an economic Great Plains or nearly impassable financial mountain range. People and businesses who only  few years ago couldn’t imagine being overwhelmed with debt or being without an adequate job or watching their sales dwindle and thereby having to give up their house or declare bankruptcy or close the store or leave their hometown for a new locale.

Such difficult challenges and hard choices can force us to jettison those irreplaceable heirlooms; the excess baggage that hinders our survival.

Not everyone, fortunately, is faced with or yet-to-be faced with these more harsh outcomes. Nevertheless, they (we) realize that the status quo is no longer as rock solid as it had once appeared. Changes, alterations, reconfigurations, downsizings, and even taking on a new product line or working a not-so-glamorous job—much of it once inconceivable—has instead become a necessity.

And, if we’re looking for a silver lining in the dark cloud, then from this adversity can emerge new directions, more creative strategies, and a hard-eyed determination. The message of the westward-bound wagon train, after all, was not about the importance of transporting all of those remnants of the past, but rather was about people getting through a dangerous and difficult passage to a new beginning.