May you live in interesting times!

Curse or blessing? The traditional school of thought regarding the origins of this phrase is that it is an ancient Chinese curse implying "may you experience much upheaval and trouble in your life".

But I have always held that "amidst chaos there is opportunity" and I seem to be backed up by people much more noteworthy than myself.

• "The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" - Winston Churchill

• "In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity" - Albert Einstein

• "There is no security on this earth. Only opportunity" - General Douglas Mac Arthur

How does this relate to retail real estate? Well, clearly we are in chaotic economic times and for retailers who have the financial resources now is a good time to negotiate a long term lease. Most of the retail leasing business in San Francisco these days is from local retailers and that makes sense. They are "on the ground" and are nimble enough to make decisions (as opposed to national retailers who have to go through layers of corporate filtering to make decisions)

In what you will hopefully accept this as somewhat related, I leave you with one of my favorite axioms - "No matter where you go, there you are". The debate of the origins of that phrase is heated. One school of thought credits it to Thomas a Kempis' "Imitation of Christ" (ca A.D. 1440) and another to the movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (ca AD 1984) .

So what's 500 years? Like they say "the more things change the more things stay the same" or as per David Byrne and the Talking Heads "same as it ever was".