Don’t make a run to your bank and demand to close out your savings and checking accounts. If you panic and start trying to cash out your 401(k) and your other investment accounts, you will be part of the self-fulfilling prophecy and contribute to the downward spiral or vicious cycle that is concomitant to all financial panics. Whatever you do, don’t panic.

Please don’t be a newb. Act like you’ve been here before. You might vaguely remember the Russian credit crisis, the Southeast Asian tiger economies melting down, the spectacular dotcom bust, and 1987′s Black Monday. Those crises, as frightening as they seemed, eventually passed. I’m not saying things are going to get better any time soon. We might go into a full-fledged recession. You could lose your job. On the other hand, maybe someone invents teleportation and ushers in a new economic boom. No one knows what the future will bring. Whatever you do, don’t panic.