It's not going to be easy, no matter how well prepared you are. But it's going to be a lot harder if you're like the 90 percent of us who aren't prepared when the bomb falls. And it can happen to anyone, anytime.

There used to be a little piece of folk wisdom: "The good people are all working". It's not true anymore. There have been just too many layoffs of too many good people in recent years. There's no longer any stigma attached to being laid off. It's a fact of business life today.

Age is not the disadvantage it once was to employment. The era of the linear career...school, work, retire at 65, die at 68...is over. As corporations rush to shed their high-salaried employees, you're probably going to be out of work much sooner than 65. Yet paradoxically, past 65, you're also much more likely to find work in some form for as long as you want it.

Changing values and expectations can erase the pain. In other societies, professions like the clergy, teaching, and social work are valued far more highly than in America. Yet, for a lot of us living in the most materialistic society on earth, success in material terms hasn't produced personal satisfaction. Who says you have to live by any values other than your own? If the personal freedom America affords has taught us anything, it's that you have only yourself to answer to for doing what you believe in and picking the life you choose.