Lesson 1: Consider Living Copy
I want us to really think about living in this lesson. Why are we living the way we do? and How is it that we are living? are two questions I have spent hundreds of hours contemplating.
Commenting on the current state of the world, the Norwegian philosopher Guttorm Floistad observed:
If you want to hang on, you better speed up. That is the message of today. It could be useful to remind everyone that our basic needs never change.
The need to be seen and appreciated! It is the need to belong. The need for nearness and care, and for a little love!
This is given only through slowness in human relations. In order to master changes, we have to recover slowness, reflection, and togetherness. There we will find real renewal.
I have thought a lot about the three stanzas in this quote. I realize that I too have “bought in” to the faster pace, trying to convince clients that the 4th Industrial Revolution is an opportunity or that they can be excited about the gig economy. Yes, these types of reframes are necessary in our work but NOT at the expense of our client’s humanity. One gift I can give them, each and every client, is the gift of going slow in session with me. This course helps us learn how to do this.
The need to be seen and appreciated! It is the need to belong. The need for nearness and care, and for a little love!
This is given only through slowness in human relations. In order to master changes, we have to recover slowness, reflection, and togetherness. There we will find real renewal.
Chaos, Artificial Intelligence, Precarity, Robotics, Uncertainty, Technological disruption, Globalization, Gig Economy…
These are the buzzwords currently on our lips. They are ubiquitous, found at every professional conference and workshops; every magazine and journal issue; and throughout popular press media across the spectrum. Staying “in front” of these current descriptions of the world-of-work feels like a responsibility for career services professionals; talking about these things with students and clients makes us seem to be useful experts; and continuing this discourse puts just the right amount of discomfort into clients to keep them needing us more.
That last part of the sentence is a bit controversial. Are we career services professionals benefiting from promoting scary ideas like those listed above?
Furthermore…
If we do convince clients that they must be concerned with those scary ideas, have we developed the new age services in response to them that ensures we are helping clients during this new age of new problems? My review of current career practices finds that a vast majority of career interventions today are still based on theory and research derived from a time before the current career crisis often promoted in the media.
I am aware that the previous paragraph of text will not be well received by many in the field. You might benefit from taking a moment and collecting your own thoughts.
I want you to keep a journal throughout this course. It can be an existing journal, a document you keep on your computer desktop, or a sketchbook you choose to doodle in throughout this course. The important thing is that your journal works for you AND that you use it!
Please re-read the quote from Guttorm Floistad at the beginning of this lesson. Write down your thoughts in your journal for 10 minutes. You do not have to agree with me at all, but I do hope that you allow my thesis to sit in your mind as you deeply consider how important centering career services work into a broader concept of life design.
Let take one more global view on the need for an attitude adjustment towards life planning. The article below calls for a new social contract, one in which career services professionals will play a role, being needed as soon as possible. Read this article. 
Given the ground we have covered thus far, it only makes sense to turn to a technology/humanist futurist in Gerd Leonhard. Watch his 6:02 video below.
https://youtu.be/PEmyJNTraZg
Finally, I would like to guide you through the first dialogue for the course. I use the term dialogue versus lecture or presentation because I hope to engage you in a dynamic process of personal exploration and learning.
As a reminder, please have a writing utensil and paper (at least one blank) with you before you begin. Please view the first dialogue using the link below.
https://youtu.be/UhGsxwqvSmw
Now that you have finished with Lesson 1, answer questions 1-5 on your worksheet. Once finished with that, mark this lesson complete and go to Lesson 2!