Career changes late in life

A dear man, close to me, has just lost his job five years from retirement.  He is the epitome of the older professional who will now have great difficulty finding another position without compromising something.  He had a plan for his life.  His retirement was within reach, but no longer.  I cannot help but relate that to myself.  This is a constant fear I have.  No matter what, things can always change and fall apart. 

This thought interrupts my life completely.  For instance, how can I buy a house with the thought forever swirling around the bowl of my brain, that no matter how secure my job is, things could change tomorrow, within the next hour.  I could lose my job, my life, the life of my spouse.  It amounts to a fear of the committment required for making any decision when the consequences would last longer than a day. 

The upside of this same fear is when I buy something mundane and simple, say a jar of peanut butter.  Upon finishing the jar, I look back and remember where I was when I bought something so meaningless and how far I’ve come and how I would have never guessed that was the direction I was headed.