Tag Archives: future

Stress from uncertainty

There is a fair bit of stress that is associated with uncertainty and we know it. Yet modernity gives us a lot of tools to prepare, and make certain bits of the future which only makes us crave for more control and perhaps heighten our expectations that the uncertainty can be eliminated.

So part of our stress now comes from the expectation of certainty. We no longer how to enjoy flexibility, and embrace the dynamism that exists in uncertainty. And then when everything is under control, we find ourselves bored, craving for some kind of variation and so on.

As the aspects of work that has complete certainty slowly gets outsourced to computers, robots and perhaps even artificial intelligence, we are going to be getting the harder bits of work. The ones that require us to actually embrace uncertainty; the type that involves no one knowing the answer. We need to regain our ability to think and solve problems bit by bit as opposed to treating everything as though there has to be a right answer and we have to get it right.

Way the system works

This is the way the system works. For everything you see in the wild, every specie of plant, insect, animal out there, they are the survivors. Somehow, someone, somewhere is keeping them alive. There is an ecosystem and while it is not like they could get by without doing a thing, their survival comes not from them alone. There’s a system thing going on. And overall, the system keeps all of them alive.

Why are the households running well, and companies making stuff, selling them? Why are we all with jobs or having kids growing up well and paying taxes? That’s because we are fed in a system that manages and coordinates those relationships. And keep things going. Of course, some systems are sustainable and some are not. In most cases, one could say no system is infinitely sustainable, just awaiting our discovery of the break in it.

The oil companies continue to extract and sell oil; and power plants continue to burn fuels and emit carbon dioxide because there’s a system that works with them in the place. That will always keep them surviving – at the expense of the future that we want to create. To overcome that system, we need to be able to dream up and work towards the alternative system.

Fraud and shortcuts to success

Maybe I’m writing this too early given the case just surfaced. I’m talking about JP Morgan’s allegation that Javice Charlie fabricated customers in order to inflate the price that she could sell her startup, Frank. It’s ironic to some extent that the fintech startup was supposed to help students cut through opacity with the college financial aid system in the US.

It reminded me of Theranos of course, if you looked at Charlie Javice’s profile, everything suggests she was incredibly intelligent and could certainly be very successful on her on merits without committing fraud. But yes she seem to have taken the position not so different from Liz Holmes or Sam Bankman-Fried.

Why is the culture making us so desperate for success or to go down the slippery slope of misrepresentation? Why are our young people believing that the whole startup and venture space is about faking it till you make it? Is there nothing wrong with that? What should we look into fixing?

New year gift

For a while now, I’ve had a career newsletter which allowed you to download the Dream, Think & Act! ebook I’ve written. And that’s all about creating the marketing funnel etc. Now I think perhaps it works better as well if more people could access it without having to surrender email addresses to me. Though you could still subscribe if you decided my ideas are useful – I don’t write very often and it’s usually just 4-6 times a year.

Thank you for giving me the attention and time to read through my random musings and nuggets of thought this year. Please do share my materials more broadly and tell more people about my materials.

For the new year of 2023, I’m putting up my ebook free. And it gets better, the original version that was being circulated around was a pdf. Now you can get it as ebooks which you can read on kindle or your favourite ebook readers. Download Dream, Think & Act! ebook (mobi and epub versions) here.