In the February issue of Harper‘s there is a review of The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris. The quote that reviewer Wyatt Mason chose reflects our fear of personal financial collapse:

We shuffled up the stairs toward the revolving doors slowly, afraid of what awaited us inside. In the beginning, we were let go in large numbers. Then, as the practice was refined, one by one, as they saw fit. We feared ending up on Lower Wacker Drive. Unemployed, we would be unpaid; unpaid, we’d be evicted from our home; evicted, we wouuld end up on Lower Wacker, sharing space with shopping carts…Instead of scrabbling for the addition of “Senior” to our current titles, we would search the alleyways for smokable butts. It was fun, imagining our eventual despair. It was also desparing. We didn’t really believe we would be honked at from the Lexuses of our former colleageus as they drove down Lower Wacker on their way home to the suburbs. We didn’t think we would be forced to wave at them from our lit oil drums.

Maybe we fear the proverbial ‘van down by the river’ scenario but for all of us, we sometimes experience a nagging sense fear when we think of losing what we have. Sometimes the world turns, despite us, in directions we neither like nor are capable of altering (see future post on Near Earth Objects). Other failures are the result of our own actions, leading to regret and remorse. What kind of failure are you most afraid of? Do you spend much time worrying about what happens if your economic world collapses? Are you afraid of making a bad decision?