As a lifelong worrier, I keep mental files on turbulent years.

I’ve decided that 2008 feels a lot like 1973: soaring gas prices, war abroad, turmoil in Washington, convulsions on Wall Street.

As a baby boomer, it’s easy for me to remember the hard years in my lifetime because there have been so few of them. For my parents’ generation, who lived through the Great Depression and World War II, dark years were common. Heck, they had dark decades.

I can remember in 1973, at age 14, thinking that America was sunk. As a teenager, with few life experiences to balance my worries, it was easy to fear the worst.

Year after year at my little hometown church we prayed for “the boys in Vietnam.” Yet, the war dragged on as I drifted out of boyhood and approached draft age. I worried about that a lot.

In 1973, Watergate was ripping apart Washington in a way I barely understood but found fascinating. I still remember the players in the Watergate drama — people such as G. Gordon Liddy, John Dean, Sen. Sam Erwin — like heroes and villains in a television miniseries.

I remember worrying about the economy, too, in 1973. With a disabled father and a mother making modest wages, the price of gas had ramifications on the quality of food on our table.

If aging is good for anything, it ought to give us perspective, even a little wisdom, right?

As a mental exercise, I tried to think hard about how our difficulties as a nation in 2008 might resolve (or get worse) in the coming years.

For better or worse, here are some thoughts.

* The economy: As in 1973, high oil prices and war are draining our national resources. Some economists predict a return of 1970s-style stagflation, inflation combined with slow economic growth.

We haven’t started eating Spam yet at my house, but most of the people I know seem to be at least a little nervous about the economy. They’re spending less and saving more.

I’m actually optimistic about the economy. Most of the current fear, I think, is media-driven. And the mainstream media isn’t well-suited to report on a moving target.

As I write, it is 4:22 on a weekday afternoon, and The Associated Press already has filed 16 versions of its daily Wall Street report, all with a slightly different take on events. I wouldn’t ask advice of someone who had changed his mind 16 times since breakfast.

* The war: No matter which party wins the presidency this year, the war in Iraq is likely to simmer on for months, if not years.

Even Democrat Barack Obama, an avowed anti-war candidate who wants to begin withdrawing combat troops immediately, concedes that if al-Qaida attempts to establish bases in Iraq, American forces will remain arrayed to confront them.

Sen. John McCain, an advocate of the current troop surge, wants a strong, long-term military presence.

Somewhere in the middle, I imagine, will be where we land — a near-term drawdown in troops with a core of entrenched forces remaining for years. (Have you prayed for the “boys in South Korea” today?)

* Gas prices: The run-up in gas prices feels like a classic speculative bubble. I think it will take awhile for Americans to shed their gas guzzlers, but supply and demand eventually will drive down gas prices.

In the meantime, used SUVs should be a bargain.

* Politics: Unlike the 1970s, when Jimmy Carter bemoaned our “national malaise,” the presidential election year of 2008 seems to have energized the nation.

I expect a spirited — and close — presidential election, with quality candidates from both parties. You can even feel a shift in the partisan rancor that has infected Washington for a generation.

The bottom line: The more silver I get in my hair, the more I look for silver linings in life.

Perhaps optimism is an acquired trait.