A Painful Reminder

"Black Thursday" was the headline that splashed across my province's newspapers recently. It was the day the government announced major job cuts in the public sector. My little city was one of the hardest hit.

Many people who were certain they had "job security" experienced a major jolt of reality. There is no such thing as "job security". The only true security lies inside us.

I've heard people say that they don't have to plan for retirement because their organization's pension fund will take care of things. Oh really? If that's what transpires, great! But what if your organization goes down the toilet? You may think, "That can't happen where I work." Well, I suspect that many employees at Enron felt that way too.

Enron was an energy giant based in the USA. Their recent bankruptcy cost thousands of jobs. Many workers held much of their company administered personal pension plans in Enron stock. For many, their jobs and retirement savings were linked to the fate of one company.

Unless we're on the board of directors or in a very senior management role, it's difficult to know for certain the health of business. And even if we are, something catastrophic can happen in the market that we can't foresee and the financial picture can change dramatically. It just doesn't make sense to hand over responsibility for our financial health to a single institution that is largely beyond our control.

Those of you familiar with my audio program, "No Limit Confidence" recognize that in order to accomplish great and grand things in this lifetime and move through life with a high degree of calmness and serenity, we must take personal responsibility for our lives.

Yes, we live in an interdependent society, but ultimately each of us is responsible for our mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and financial health. The recent wave of cutbacks, layoffs and bankruptcies has served to remind us of this.

We are each chairman & CEO of our own lives. Let's not inadvertently relinquish that control to another individual, government, or organization. nnnn