Lately I’ve seen a spike in traffic for an article I wrote last month called 25 Things to Do, Now That you’ve Lost Everything., I guess it’s good that people are finding me on the web but a lot of you guys are coming into the site using keywords such as:

• I’ve lost everything
• What to do, I’ve lost everything
• Everything is lost, is suicide the answer?

Wow. Look, I want to be frank here … I’m not a therapist and most of my advice here is about formating HTML but I do want to share a thought with all of you, the global economic crisis aka the 21st Depression or the cluster fuck we call the new economy will get better … the world is pretty messed up right now and a lot of people have lost absolutely everything but in the end, it’ll all be OK.

It’ll be OK

Let’s say that again … it’ll all be OK in the end. This time last year, I was the Director Corporate of Technology for a leading university, I left my job a few weeks before the world imploded and it took me a long time to accept the global collapse, heck I’ve even written about it here a few times with articles like So You Lost Your Job, Now it’s Time to Live. and What to Do Now That you’ve Lost Your Job but the key is this … in the end, it’ll all work out.

How do I know that’ll work out? Because you’re already doing what it takes to make sure it does … you’re reading articles on the Internet by people who’ve been through it and come out on the other side, it’s a little like a storm and as long as you’ve got something to hang onto you’ll be OK in the end. So what should you hang onto? People, they’re all that matters.

Technology Workers

This post is sort of like a continuation of my piece, Technology Burnout, the Downside of the IT Industry where I talked about the stress levels a lot of IT workers feel and how in the end many people I’ve worked with over the past 15 years reached a point that they snapped and walked out of the industry. One such friend left his promising career and began kickboxing in Thailand, only to fall in love and have a whole new life.

Why am I telling you this? Because as depressing as it is find out my most popular SEO value this week is about losing everything, it’s even more depressing to see that so far today 12 people have found my website while surfing Google contemplating (even briefly) suicide. Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually a proponent of suicide as a choice for those with painful illnesses and I believe that everybody should have the right to choose when they check out of life but not as an alternative or a side effect of a few bad months in the economy.

What to do, instead of killing yourself

First, get over whatever it was that you just lost. Yep, that’s a big one but it’s crucial if you’re going to get back on the right track. Men, I believe have been trained to assume that our job is who we are. We introduce ourselves at parties and tell people what we do, so the loss of our job is in some ways like losing part of ourselves. Get over it. If you want to be something, order some business cards with a fancy title on it and start telling people what you are.

Are you out of money? No problem, Laid Off Technology Workers are Finding Work Online. There are plenty of jobs out there for people who are willing to look for them and try hard. Otherwise, go back to school, learn a new trade or build your own online business. Maybe it’s time to be your own boss?