Google “how to stay unemployed and yet be happy” and all sorts of websites will pop up telling you how to keep yourself sane when you are jobless. The tips – they range from tapping the state’s unemployment benefits and touching up your CV to doing volunteer work – might come in handy when the banking sector is culling jobs like nobody’s business. Not surprisingly, some soon-to-be business school graduates are having sleepless nights worrying how they will pay off their student loans without a good job offer.

The academic literature says the longer you are unemployed, the less likely you are to find a job. As you draw deeper in your own shell, you wonder again why you did not get that job. But people in the industry say it is important not to give up hope because firms are still going to need talented people.

“The world will continue to grow,” says my friend who oversees a European bank’s Asian franchise. “Look at Japan, there are still structural problems. Europe may at worst be a Japan in the making, but the world will not be too badly affected. The world I see will muddle through, there will not be an Armageddon.’’

Another friend shared with me that on New Year’s Day, it was his good fortune to reunite with his 100-year-old aunt in Hong Kong whom he had not seen for several years. Even though her movements had slowed down with age, she was mentally agile and in excellent health. The key to her vitality was a simple and frugal life, staying active, and working well into her 80s in various jobs.

As we worry about the employment markert in financial services, it may do us good to pause and ask ourselves if we are doing enough to look after ourselves first, such as exercising and eating healthily. Take yourself less seriously and always cherish what you have. Some events are clearly sad and not occasions for laughter. But most parts in life do not carry an overwhelming sense of either sadness or delight.

Even when you are employed and running in the rat race, remember that life is not a rehearsal and you can only watch the entire movie played out in your grey years. Hopefully contented at that time with your grown-up kids or grandchildren, you will have realised whether you have lived a fruitful life, instead of one filled with self doubts or could-haves.

Gabriel Chen is a Singaporean student at London Busines School and a former financial journalist for Singapore’s Straits Times.