Is all the financial turmoil — not to mention the already-existing political/election and terrorist/war stress — getting to you? We’re all connected to the financial system, and though many people have become complacent again after the bailouts, and because no huge institutions have failed in the last couple of weeks, many experts say the worst is yet to come. So what can you do? Are we facing a depression like the 1930s? How bad will it get? The real question, though, is how can you prepare yourself, financially and emotionally, for what might happen. I’d like to offer my advice, for whatever it’s worth.

Almost everybody is looking for some sort of help. Let’s face it, being a person isn’t easy. There’s plenty that can go wrong. You can get sick, or injured. You can fail to make (or keep) friends and end up feeling lonely. You can make a mistake and lose money, or not make any in the first place. No matter who you are, you’re going to feel bad at least some of the time. Sometimes you have to put up with people who are annoying or hostile and who certainly don’t have your best interests at heart. You try to get what you want, but sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you get what you don’t want. And even if you get what you want, you can lose it, it changes, or it falls apart. Or, you consume it and it’s gone.

I’m not saying that life doesn’t have its joys, because it does, but everyone at some time feels helpless, alone, and confused in an unpredictable world with a lot of problems and plenty of suffering. We wonder, then, what we can do about this Problem of Life?–which, to make matters worse, includes death, since the fact that we’re going to eventually fall apart is inevitable, not only for ourselves but for those we love.

So what are we going to do? Is there any way to master this situation?