What can you do during uncertain stressful time?

The economy continues winding down and layoff pink-slips are blanketing everywhere in the globe. Unknowing for how long you can hang on to the job you have, it's an uneasy and grilling experience. I want to share with you a few things on how I deal with uncertainty and this job-related stress. It's not because I am an expert on this topic. Every one has their own stress management tricks. Most of us are already pretty good dealing with stress. But generally what people do is to avoid it. Many people resort to alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, disorderly eating instead on facing and attacking the stress directly. Here I give you my two cents.

1. Identifying the long term areas that are core and important to you. We all want to have a job. Or you might be losing your home. Or your stock portfolio might worth <10% of it's value a year ago. But these are not the core values that characterize you. Your family and friends, your health, your personality, and your knowledge are. Underlying the volatile, uncontrollable aspects in your life such as net wealth and job, are the fundamentals. And the areas that I just identified are the fundamentals.

2. Stripping your material lust to the very least. Try to think of what you can carry with you if you are about to a refuge. I do this thinking all the time and now I am pretty satisfied having a minimalist material life. Knowing that my family and my knowledge are much more important than the stuff that I own is very relieving.

3. Setting a long term goal and continuing working towards it. Try to picture what you want to be doing in 10-15 years. I, for example, have several goals. I want to be an entrepreneur in china providing effective, free-market solutions to solve business or social problems. There is a lot of white space in China. For example, how to direct the vast selection of manufacturing products to the Chinese market, how to provide an effective quality control system for products, how to help finance entrepreneurship in high-tech, high-growth industries, and how to protect their fruits. To be able to do that, I need knowledge in technology (having a PhD gives me a good start), economy, finance and business management. I won't be surprised if I find myself in a business school somewhere down the road.

$. Try to stay focused. Do one thing at a time. I have to admit that I am not that good in this area.

5. Having said the above three points, all of which are interconnecting and it's about living an active life, the last but not the least is keep in touch with family and friends.