Well, this sort of happened to me. A few years back, I would often wonder what it would be like if I was doing something different in my life. About this time, I was approached regarding a "buy-out". The thing is, my position was being eliminated and I didn't have a choice. I took my year's worth of pay, signed up for unemployment benefits - which I was able to collect at the same time and never looked back.
Plus, I retained all of the stocks that I purchased as an employee and retain rights to a pension when I become eligible to retire - quite a long ways down the road, though.