NEXT> on Career ~1

NOW<
Is it just me, or do you also feel that these days, every 1.75th person you meet is unhappy with their career/ job? Actually at times, I went through the very same feelings. Typically, these are feelings of:

• Inadequacy
• Mismatch with job: you're either smarter than your job, or it's too demanding
• Bad fit: your heart used to be somewhere else. Worse, it's fleeing back there
• other forms of job insecurity

I've seen a lot of people having to jump ship. Which is not bad at all, until we start calling it "having to jump ship."

The worst thing is, we think it's us. Something outside in the world has changed due to some of our misdoings, and the resultant (unwelcome) change is our punishment.

"It's my fault," thinks the guilty heart.

But I think differently.

NEXT>

Consider this a goold old "who moved my cheese" lecture with a bit of a solace for over-thinking hearts. Your cheese is not moved by you. It's moved by PEST.

In business studies, the external change factors are analyzed by the PEST model: political, economic, social/ cultural, and technological change. The fact is, technology today is shaping a new world everyday. Not only is there rapid evolution of directly-used technology (such as computers), but also indirectly-used technology that creates faster technology (such as computer chips). And the development is taking place in many places, often not interrelated at all.

The market thus is constantly surprised. It's in a flux.

The second big change is in the social/cultural factor. I think that owes largely to electronic media that has lapsed most territorial and technological boundaries. Take the simple example of dress. Each week, you can be surprised how the liberals are experimenting with conservative and traditional dressing, and how the die-hard nationalists adopt a completely alien style just because its everywhere on TV. And they think it's everywhere in their real world too.

The political situation the world over is in rouge hands, and there's nothing more to it than a slower or quick realization of this.

And so we're left with economics, that usually is the result of the former three.

The net effect is a hugely variable, instable, chaotic environment that will never stabilize in foreseeable future. It is NOT affected by any one person or entity, nor even the most seemingly powerful.

And that's the NEXT> fact of the moment.