By Kevin M
“Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”—Motto of The Christophers
I mostly make my living on the internet these days but I have a confession. I never worked much with computers until three years ago, least of which the internet. Sure, in the preceding 25 years that I worked in mortgages and accounting I used computer applications, lots of them, but most of us understand the not so subtle difference between that and working in an environment in which your primary means of support is coming directly from working on/in computers or somewhere out in cyberspace.
My career as a paper pusher ended unceremoniously at the end of 2008, a time when recycled paper pushers weren’t in very big demand. Where to go, what to do? Damn computers–#%&*@$g internet—they’ll be the end of the world, you watch!
That last line is a fiction (OK, it was a deeply suppressed thought), but I chose to intentionally avoid dwelling on it. Every one who’s ever seen their career crash and burn can point to one or more big picture factors that directly or indirectly greased the wheels of their departure. We can either poison ourselves with bitterness, or find some way to benefit from prevailing changes (hence the Christopher’s quote above). Which route we take will mostly determine our future direction.
Last night my wife learned something disturbing—not for herself but for some of her coworkers. She has a part time job with a company that just announced that fulltime employees are losing their benefits and being converted to part time status. 
Picture this: you’re 50 years old, your career is dying on the vine—your entire industry is on life support—and you need to find a new career to carry you through the rest of your life. 
You’re over it, all of it—the job, your career, the nine-to-five routine, the morning commute, the cubicle in the corner—you want to ditch it all and finally start your own business.
Are you thinking about starting your own business? If so, you have a lot of company. According to the Department of Labor, 
Income Security VS Job Security – Does it Matter?
By Kevin M
Back then it seemed that all of humanity would eventually be going to space—to find resources, to conquer new worlds or at least to alleviate overpopulation here on earth—and astronauts would lead us there. High minded and exciting, yes, except that it never happened!
If a career as cutting edge as astronauts is no longer secure, what can we say about the far more ordinary fields most of us regular folks work in?
You’ve heard it and read it before, and perhaps you’ve even been a casualty of one of the biggest phenomena of our time–the end of job security.
We have to do something about that, but what? Individually, there’s little any of us can do to create job security, but we can gravitate toward it’s close cousin, income security. If we have income security we might not even notice or care that we no longer have job security.
Read more »