green thumb twiddling.

You should grow a garden. Your neighbors will become curious and motivated to start gardens of their own. Little kids will force their parents to stop in front of your garden to check on its progress. No one will steal your tomatoes even though everyone who sees that you started a garden right next to the sidewalk tells you that people will steal your tomatoes. Which means you can have conversations like this:

Someone Else: So what have you done with all of your free time since you lost your job?

You: I restored my faith in humanity by growing awesome tomatoes that nobody stole when they walked past.

Someone Else: Wow, working life has washed away all of the faith I had in humanity. Well, working life and NYC Prep.

You: Jubilee heirloom tomatoes are crazy delicious, and they're yellow!

Or maybe you don't care about gardens because your inability to keep plants alive is notorious, and when people bring you what they claim to be unkillable plants you always kill them and this makes you feel bad about yourself. In which case you should go read this article about the positive effects of the recession from Cracked.com.