Happy Days Are Here for Some
The Way We Live Now: blinking. As some opportunities fade out, others blaze prominently. Win some, lose some, ups and downs, one door closes and another opens, etc. As long as you're not poor, weak, or European, you'll survive. Probably.
Paul Krugman is all like "Can Europe Be Saved?" Just the fact that someone is writing that story, even with a question mark, is a very bad sign for you, Europe! Cause you know it has to be at least mildly plausible that no, Europe cannot be saved. Europe will turn into one big production of The Road, and that's it. Goodbye, Europe.
Here in America we laugh and sip beverages and have far fewer problems than dumb old Europe (and also more guns). Our problems are more of the variety of "I'm 50 and the career path I've been on for the past three decades is vanishing and omigod what will I to survive for the next three decades?" Which is not that bad when you compare it to a hypothetical Europe reliving the rat-eating days of WWI! I mean, the auto workers all thought that their career path was vanishing, and now, boom goes the dynamite, add a little USA mojo magic and brands are being reborn and workers are receiving fat ass checks again and not to go too far out on a limb but the days of drive-thrus, sock hops, poodle skirts, and easy living at the soda shoppe in your little deuce coupe appear to once again be right around the corner.
The takeaway is that, like access to an affordable food supply, career paths come and go. But through all the bumps in the road and years of humans literally starving, the one thing that will "pull us through" is the old-fashioned American pluck, the kind of pluck that will motivate you to beat up a fellow ice cream deliveryman in a vicious battle over an ice cream delivery route.
That's how we get down. Creamy.