Meghan Daum, writing in the LATimes, has managed to find a bright side to the growing recession, with its flattened house market and $4/gallon gas prices: home repairmen who come immediately, and California’s empty freeways.

Sure, things are going to get ugly very soon. Layoffs will increase, the housing market will go from dismal to awful, and pretending to be in a sci-fi movie set in the future (admit it, you’ve tried it!) will no longer be an effective coping mechanism for the trauma of filling up at the pump. But for the moment, I can’t help but feel that this recession — or at least the evanescent moment before it kicks into high gear — offers a kind of coziness you rarely feel in a booming economy.

Daum, whom I’ve blogged about before, compares the current crisis to her four bucolic years when, after nearly bankrupting herself trying to live in NYC, she moved to Omaha, where she was lucky to make $12,000 a year.

Unlike life in New York or L.A., where the baseline emotional state is lifestyle envy, I found it difficult in Nebraska to waste a lot of energy being jealous of other people’s kitchen remodels. And although I was bored some of the time, I was also the beneficiary of a unique brand of contentment, the kind born of freedom from the tyranny of wanting stuff.

I am SO wanting to get out of the rut of “lifestyle envy,” as she so cunningly puts it. I’m happy to go home to my well-worn carpeting, non-HDTV and 25-year-old bathroom fixtures and just hunker down and live. Maybe I’ll splurge on some paint and some fresh flowers once in awhile, but I suspect those long-coveted stainless-steel kitchen appliances will never get purchased. The washer and dryer don’t match, but no matter. They work just fine.

The Spouse and I now prefer to go to movie matinees when the tickets are cheaper, and maybe we can even wait for our picks to show up at the local dollar movie houses. I’ve already blogged about my thrifting adventures. And I’ve always based Sunday dinner around whatever cut of meat was on sale that weekend.

Rather than obsessively watching our retirement portfolios evaporate, perhaps we should just stop, take a deep breath and decide what has to stay and what can be let go. That cup of Diet Coke with ice I always stop and buy on my way to work (I like my caffeine cold) could turn into a can from my fridge. I might carpool to work with The Spouse or someone else once a week. I could use that time when I fix Sunday dinner to put together one or two other meals for later in the week.

Best of all, getting back to Daum’s argument, I could quit comparing myself and my life with others. Period. On all levels. If I really, honestly could do that, I think I’d be happy with a lot less.

This post was written by C. of MsMeta, who wants to know:  who else would be happy with less?