As I try to do a couple of times a year, let’s take a break and think about all the things we have to be grateful for. It has been proven that being grateful is one of the best ways to make your life better—to be both happier and more successful.

The last post in this series was about the old world, one that was dominated and defined by politics both between and within nation-states. Indeed, the nation-state was the defining entity of the period, with political borders determining economic relationships. But even within nation-states, economic actors were largely constrained by political forces, in the form of laws, regulations, and borders. It was a much smaller world from the perspective of most companies. Your competitors came from your industry, in your country. You knew them, they knew you, and you were all pretty much playing by the same rules and subject to the same constraints.

I closed my post two days ago with the observation that the now world—the world optimized around economics—has changed significantly from what came before it. It really became different this time, within the lifetime of most of the readers of this blog.

I want to take a break today from the next world discussion to check in on the stock market. Since the pullback in October and the bounce after the midterms, we have seen a slow and continuous decline. I have been hearing more questions and concerns, so let’s take a look at what is going on.

As we discussed yesterday, the world is always changing. But in the past couple of years, there has been a growing sense that the changes we’re seeing now go beyond what is normal. From an investment and economic perspective, it seems these changes might be getting systemic enough that, over the next decade or so, it really will be different this time. To understand what might happen next, though, it is important to understand where we are starting from—as the next world will inevitably evolve from the now world.

Now that I am back from the Commonwealth National Conference, I want to spend the next week or so outlining the ideas behind my speech there. The genesis of my presentation was the hundreds of conversations I had with financial advisors and clients over the preceding months. All had different questions and concerns—ranging from whether the U.S. was inevitably declining to whether the U.S. was the only safe place to invest. But over time, a common core concern emerged: the sense that somehow things were changing, as well as the growing worry that the answers we have relied on no longer fit in the new world we are moving into.

This week, the big news was the Democrats’ takeover of the House of Representatives and the subsequent large bounce back in the stock market. Put together, it sounds like I am implying a causal connection. I suppose I am—but not the obvious one.

I think we are all glad October is over. U.S. markets were down between 5 percent and 10 percent at the end of the month, even after a partial recovery, and international markets were down 8 percent to 9 percent. A sudden drop in confidence, especially in the big tech stocks, also rocked markets in a way we have not seen in some time. Indeed, October lived up to its scary reputation. But what does this mean for November?

Next week is Commonwealth’s National Conference—an annual event where as many Commonwealth advisors as can make it gather together to learn, to network, and, most important, to have a good time together. This year, we are down in Austin again, a wonderful town. I am very much looking forward to it!

The other day in my post on the likelihood of another market crash, I pointed out that stocks could be viewed as either cheap (based on expected earnings growth and the forward P/E ratio for the past five years or so) or expensive (based on most of history before that). The real question, going forward, is whether the past five years are a better guide for the future or whether prior history is. In other words, are things different this time?