On a Monday night in a room above the Builders Arms in Kensington, west London, Luke Benson, 24, steps up to the mic, takes a deep breath, and hopes he’s funny. Actually, it’s more that the mic has to step up to him: he’s a gangly 6ft 7in and the stand isn’t high enough. He holds it off the floor for a while, deadpan, milking it for effect. “In the land of giants, I’m quite small,” he quips, before launching into a quirky observational set that earns him lots of applause.

He looks the part, he’s got the talent, and it’s easy to imagine him on the telly. Then again, stand-up is a risky career at the best of times. Until now, Luke, who’s from Newcastle, has had a day job to fall back on — he’s been working in accounts while trying to raise his profile on the comedy circuit. Now he’s been laid off. But is he bereft? Oh no. “It’s a positive thing. I’ve been evaluating my life and things are opening up.”

He’s a natural optimist, surely wasted in an office job (“I did an awful lot of spreadsheet work”). “The moment I was told I was going to be made redundant was quite funny,” he says. “The boss took me to one side and said, ‘You’re in a pool of one.’ ‘That’s not a pool,’ I said. ‘That’s a puddle.’” In case he’s not an overnight success, he has signed on with a recruitment agency. “The woman asked me to describe myself in three words. I said, ‘Concise.’ She looked down at her paper, looked back up and said, ‘That’s not three words.’” He waits for the laugh.

Why did he become an accountant in the first place? “I wanted stability, and I saw it as a recession-proof job.” Ah. But he’s got no regrets. Before, his comedy career was limited by the fact that at the busiest times of the month he couldn’t get to out-of-town gigs and get back at 3am. Now he has no such constraints. “I’m excited. I’ve got a bit of time to put my head up and chase after things. I’ve got a little envelope and a chance to make the future I want. Oddly enough, the recession has been good — it’s been a catalyst to action.”

As it has for many people. Since we officially slid into recession last year, expert predictions have been dire and nobody is supposed to admit to having any fun. Now of course it would be foolish to pretend that there aren’t tens of thousands of British men and women suffering because of the economic crisis. Job loss can spell disaster, especially for people with skills that don’t transfer easily. The hundreds of steelworkers laid off by Corus would probably not react well to the suggestion that they now have a lovely opportunity to explore what they really want out of life. But alongside this picture, another is emerging — of people who have never been happier.

Some of them have existing businesses that are doing better thanks to the recession. Others are discovering their inner entrepreneur and setting up their own companies. Many have simply realised that the earn-fast, spend-faster lifestyle of the boom years didn’t bring them much joy, and are trading in financial security for emotional wellbeing and personal growth. In the US they’re nicknamed “the funemployed”. Some people jumped at the chance to jump ship; others were forced to walk the plank, then to their pleasant surprise found they could swim.

Professor Andrew Oswald, an economist and happiness researcher at Warwick University, sees several “golden linings” to the recession. Our health, for example, should improve, at least for the first year (we’re buying fewer cars, cigarettes and pints of beer). Oswald was one of the first people to predict the fall in house prices; he calls what we’re experiencing now “a necessary dose of realism” after the mania that gripped us, whereby we thought we could earn more from our house prices than by working 40 hours a week. “The night after the party is a necessary and good thing to go through, even if it’s painful.”

Recession can be useful to business, he says. “Many employers take the opportunity to push through fundamental changes, blaming the recession. They get rid of old-fashioned ways of doing things. In a crisis people are more open to listening to managers with new ways of thinking.”

Secondly, at an individual level, change can be unexpectedly good. “Many people have been forced into self-employment, and the self-employed report a higher level of job satisfaction than the employed. We think it’s because of the autonomy, the independence of spirit.

“It’s easy to be overly gloomy,” he adds. “We do bounce back from recession. And sometimes it gives people a prompt that turns out to be beneficial. Some people end up happier in a way that wouldn’t have happened without the shock.”

“A lot of people working in a bureaucracy actually hate it,” says Mel Bartley, a sociology professor at University College London. “Being ejected may be a turning point. Having control over the kind of work you do is much healthier. Some people will ask themselves, ‘Do I really want to hang onto this job where I have to kowtow to the boss, and work all hours?’ In surveys, large numbers of people say they would rather be self-employed, but it’s risky. They need both freedom and support to be innovative.”

In addition, as all good psychologists will tell you, it takes optimism to turn a disaster into a triumph. Fortunately, optimism is a skill that can be learnt. As Richard Wiseman’s book

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