I love to write, and as such try to avoid cliches. But cliches often started out as wise, pithy sayings. They start life as aphorisms and deteriorate into cliches.

In today’s world, two cliches seem to overlap to create a new aphorism. The first: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. The second: Never let a good crisis go to waste.

The social and economic devastation wrought by the coronavirus has given us a once-in-a-century opportunity to make a great leap forward in how we prepare people for the world of work. I’ve written extensively about how we are living in the Age of Agility, where success is dependent upon the ability to reinvent yourself continually, staying ahead of the change curve.

While the profound changes reshaping our economy were unfolding more slowly (though still at relatively breakneck speed), many people viewed agility arguments as a stimulating intellectual exercise. Now, it’s hard to find anyone who ponders these issues who doesn’t see the need for a profound realignment as an urgent necessity.

This New York Times column is a recent example of the mainstreaming of agility arguments. Economic reporter Steve Lohr writes:

“In the coronavirus economy, companies are adopting more automation, as they seek to cut costs and increase efficiency. There is debate about which jobs are most at risk and how soon. But climbing up the skills ladder is the best way to stay ahead of the automation wave.”

Lohr  highlights the stories of a couple of workers demonstrating agility to better their lives. One is a deeply indebted truck driver who won an $1,800 scholarship through Google to take a Udacity computer programming course, and ended up with a $60,000 per year programming job — more than he was making as a trucker.

The other is a working mom with three kids who enrolled in Western Governors University, an online nonprofit school, and got a nursing degree, immediately boosting her prospects.

What give me modest hope is that there may be a bipartisan consensus building about next steps. Writes Lohr:

The rapid change is leading to mounting demands — including from typically opposing groups, like Republicans and Democrats, and business executives and labor leaders — for training programs for millions of workers. On their own, some of the proposals are modest. But combined they could cost tens of billions of dollars, in what would be one of the most ambitious retraining efforts in generations.

Sounds good. Let’s make some lemonade out of this crisis.