There are those who don't fall apart when there are layoff rumors. Take the ones about Simpson Thacher Bartlett, which have turned out to be inaccurate.
Some of the associates I know at that firm were pretty philosophical. They had used their big salaries to pay down old debt, hadn't acquired any new debt, and aside for the protective coloring of the tailored suits, lived the life of poverty.
I know them from the communities like this one in New Haven, Connecticut. If you are alert, you can find a place to live here cheap, surrounded by people who are highly educated but non-materialistic. Given that, there's no encouragement to buy anything, including our own house. Many of us have completed a five-year run of poverty. I was a newbie at that, after the 15-year run of the hunger for more.
None of us look forward to getting laid off, losing a client, having our professions/industries/yet another technology change. But when it happens, as it has already or soon will in the crazy rhythms of the 21st century, it's a problem to solve, not a crisis. The interesting thing about living amidst the new poverty is that others help us when we receive an economic hit. During my run of unbridled affluence setbacks were treated as possibly contagious.
How long can this simple lifestyle endure? Lots of us wonder just that. In fact, my executive coach sort of said "basta" [Italian for "enough"] in a recent session. "Jane, you look very proud and poor," she observed. "Do you want to look that way?" she asked. My answer: "I don't know." What I do know is that right now a longing for nothing material has allowed me to finally do good work.
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