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John Mauldin* and his friend David Kotok call their latest blogs “I’m worried”. When eminent gurus like these worry we should stir. We have been taking notice of your worries, which have increased rapidly over the last few months. What are they?

Potential loss of job hits the top spot. People have become used to moving around so a change is not something of great concern. Losing a job has even become respectable in the last few years. “On to the next thing.” That, today, is the difficulty. Jobs are disappearing, competition for them is getting stiffer. Often the next job isn’t there. Even when it is we cannot be sure that the playing field for getting it is level.

A lot of jobs are needed and many friends have justifiable demands on a job giver’s generosity so that many are already spoken for before the advertisement appears. One of the things we in Terrific Mentors are frequently asked is to help people get the next job. It can usually be done if approached professionally and determinedly.

Your worries extend beyond your own work survival. The incomprehension you became used to when dealing with professionals in the financial world has given way to almost universal distrust and suspicion that anything offered that looks half way good has a catch in the small print. The feeling is not unjustified. Kicking the bankers will not reorder the world of money, however.

Where we had confidence in our advisers we now do not. This plus the need to completely reorganize the financial world imply that we must ourselves tackle the unpleasant task of learning how money works. Failure will mean we will have very little of it in a few years time. Creating trillions over the last five years has brought the risk of serious inflation – something else high on your list of worries.

The business world causes concern with experiences of cheap, poor quality products and unreliable service. The bitterness of poor quality lasts long after the sweetness of low price has disappeared.

Medicine, for all its advances, gives rise to anxiety. Diagnosis has become expensive and technical. You do not know if a doctor is seeking tests he really needs or merely churning work for himself, clinic and hospital. I doubt the practice of unnecessary operations is widespread but it is reported often enough to worry you.

This is not an exhaustive list of your worries but it highlights what you see as the more important personal ones. Population control, climate conservation, food and water, pollution all add to a sense that all is not well.

Are we learning too much to be able to enjoy life?