One of the toughest situations is losing a job you've held for many years. It's very difficult to get a job when you're in your 50s. For any midlifer who loses a job, the worst time is after he or she has been told but before the actual layoff. Maybe you don't get as good a job as you had before, but you don't starve. You suck it up and go on with life.
People face all sorts of setbacks.
One of the worst, notes Kessler, is finding out a spouse is having an affair. Others include divorce, disability, death of a loved one, rape, battering, cancer, and stroke. It's amazing what a typical person goes through but survives. The thing that strikes you is how enormously resilient men and women are. It gives you faith in the human spirit.