The Saturday after the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., I was scheduled to speak to a gathering of individual investors in Chicago. I didn't give too much thought to my scheduled talk immediately following that tragic Tuesday. I, like everyone else in America, had freeze-framed my own life to focus on this National horror.

But as the weekend drew closer, I began to think about my speech and whether there would be any speech at all. Indeed, many gatherings were being canceled throughout the country in the wake of the awful tragedies, and I was wondering just how many people really wanted to talk about stocks just days after such unprecedented destruction to our country's collective psyche.

Truth be told, I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk about stocks either.

So when I received a call on that Friday from the individual who had asked me to speak, I was expecting to hear from her that my gathering had been canceled or postponed.

Instead, what I heard was the following: "We have been getting very strong response and expect to have more than 100 people," she said.

That my talk was still on surprised me; that more than 100 people wanted to venture into the country's third-largest city - a city whose skyscrapers would serve as reminders that what happened in New York could easily have happened in Chicago - to talk about stocks surprised me even more.

But I was surprised for only for a moment. Then it occurred to me - life really does go on.
Actually, life can't help but go on. Life is what all of us do. We live.

And living, ultimately, is not a spectator sport.

That's why people showed up for my talk. That's why I showed up. That's why you showed up at work on the Wednesday and Thursday and Friday following the attack. That's why you took your clothes to the cleaner, dragged your garbage to the curb for pick-up, ran your kids to soccer practice, played with your grandkids after church on Sunday.

Life goes on.

To be sure, I know there were people who came to my talk who probably felt guilty about attending. After all, it doesn't seem right that anyone should care about something as "trivial" as a stock portfolio when thousands of people are suffering physically and emotionally. But you know what - it's OK to care about your stock portfolio. Or your job. Or your pet. Or your refrigerator that's on the blink. Or your car that's running rough. That's all about the process of living, of moving from one day to the next and to the next and to the next.

Yes, there is an investment message in all of this, and the message is the following: That life truly does go on has important implications as to how you should react to this tragedy. Much is being made about how our own private worlds will be changed forever. I'm not so sure about that. That process of living is tough to disrupt for long.

Yes, in the short run - the next few weeks or maybe even months - people will think twice about getting on an airplane, taking a vacation, buying a car.

Even buying a stock.

But I guarantee you that people will fly again. Will take vacations again. Will buy cars again. Will buy stocks again

Why? Because that's what we do. That's all part of the process of living. And that won't change regardless of what happened on September 11.

Whenever I'm confronted with the notion that bad times are irreversible, I think back to how people must have felt during the Civil War. Think about that period for a moment. A nation under siege from itself. States against states. Families against families. Brothers against brothers.

Only a fool would have believed that light existed at the end of that dark tunnel.

And yet, our Nation survived. Life did go on.

As it will this time,

.I can't tell you when things will get better in this country. I can't tell you when things will get better in the market. My sense is that we are close to a bottom in stocks, but only time will tell.

What I can tell you with great assurance is this - There is light at the end of the tunnel.

For the stock market. And for our Nation.

God Bless America!

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