Don't ever say, "It couldn't get any worse!"

It can. And you know it. I think there's someone's "law" that says that if things can go bad, they will. (That's pretty pessimistic but worth keeping in mind.)

I always heard as a kid that that the Chinese were reluctant to praise their children, as that kind of hubris might bring down the vengeance of the gods on their child.

The opposite applies, too. Don't complain too much about your situation, or you might invite some nasty god to smite you just to prove that you're a simple, silly human with no control over your own destiny. In short, "You think that's bad? Watch this!"

The point is that, however bad things are for you -- or for our nation or even the world -- it could most certainly get worse. And has. Many times before.

Those of us alive today do not remember World War One. (I think all those vets are dead.) But there was a time when people all over the world thought that WWI was as bad as it could get. All those young men, from so many different countries, dying in trenches far from home, getting cut to pieces by that wonderful new piece of military equipment, the machine gun, or having their lungs seared by another great demonic invention, mustard gas. Young boys died right and left, often horribly. And even after it was over, cities and even whole nations had to bind up their wounds.

I'm sure most of the world was saying, "It couldn't get any worse!"

Uh oh. Not a good thing to say. Those evil gods were listening.

Little more than twenty years later, Hitler came to power in Germany, and the carnage of that first world war was magnified many times. Not only were young men from even more countries
slaughtered, but entire cities were destroyed, whole populations -- the Jews, most notably --
targeted for absolute extinction. World War Two was so much worse than World War One that we almost don't even remember that first "war to end all wars".

It can always get worse.

I was reminded of this recently by the downturn in our national economy. So many of us had jobs that looked like a lock. We did our work and maybe even got praised for our efforts. We bought houses in nice neighborhoods and started families and looked forward to living the American Dream: work hard, and you'll be rewarded.

But then the banks who had loaned us the money to buy our houses started to fail. Apparently they'd also loaned to lots of others who couldn't afford those houses, just so they could put it on their books that they had that money, when they were really just hoping they did, hoping that all those people could keep up payments that "ballooned" after a certain period of time, becoming more than the bank had led them to believe they'd be paying every month.

Suddenly lots of people couldn't pay their mortgages, couldn't make that exploded payment. They started leaving their houses behind, to be taken over by the banks. But the banks weren't making any money from those re-possessed houses that no one could afford to buy, so they began to lose money. And once the bank starts to fail, to lose money, their loans to responsible people like you get to be suspect, too. If that bank goes bust, where is your loan? Who holds it?

It was a house of cards, and it collapsed, and lots of people couldn't afford their homes any more and had to sell or just leave. When the payments got to be more than they could afford, they realized that they'd been duped into deals they never should have signed.

So they lost our homes, and we thought: It couldn't get any worse than this.

And then came the lay-offs and the firings. Because the banks failed, so did lots of businesses.
We lost our jobs, so not only didn't we have a home, we had no income. We were very nearly on the street. And in some cases, we were.

On another end of the financial spectrum were those older folks who had put away dollars year after year, in investments, hoping to retire with enough to see them through the years when they wouldn't be earning anything. The stock market, where most of those investments were, started to tank a year or so ago, meaning that whatever those people thought they were worth was suddenly, and dramatically, a lot less. The market numbers dropped to record lows.

It can't get worse than this, they thought.

And then it got a lot worse. The market plummeted to levels it hadn't seen in decades. What a hundred thousand dollars was worth was now worth fifty thousand. And then even less.

Old folks had to think of getting part-time jobs, as greeters at WalMart, or worse.

We all were thinking that we'd seen the worst, that things couldn't get any worse, and then, of course, they did.

So what is the lesson from all this? How do you/we plan for the worst?

That's a tough one. We, as humans, are optimistic, always thinking that if we do things right, if we're moral and hard-working and honest, we'll succeed. And that's probably right. Most of the time. Maybe not now. (I still have my fingers crossed.)

But we should always keep an ear to the ground -- listening for the buffalo stampede coming our way -- aware that what we take for granted today could very well disappear tomorrow. That the future we have so neatly planned out could be gone with one wrong turn on a highway or one stupid investment or one night with the wrong person.

A couple of years ago, my younger brother died of a heart condition he'd had since childhood. He was the one who always looked after my mother, who was in her nineties. I thought this was the blow that would do her in. I dreaded going down there, back to my hometown. But while I was there, my older brother, who had cancer, also died, so not only did I end up writing two obits in a week but my mother lost two sons in that same time. I'm sure she thought, after my little bro died, "It can't get any worse!" And then her other son died. Less than a week later.

We're born into this life and do our best, but we shouldn't assume anything. The best usually happens over time, but the worst can happen in an instant. We have to be ready.

What does that mean? I think it means letting all your loved ones know who to call --even if
they don't know each other --in case something bad happens to you. Get everyone you love in touch with each other as soon as possible. Gie them all numbers they can dial right away. Get
the word out that something bad has happened, and it's time to rally the troops!

In the meantime, be smart. Think ahead. Put aside enough to see you through a crisis. Don't write that email today that you can write tomorrow. Keep your resume updated. Conserve.
Keep in touch with your loved ones, even those you don't like.

Save.

Yes, it can always get worse, but it you know that, you won't be blind-sided if/when it happens.

Good luck!