Career crossroads: the collective solution to uncertainty

The world is changing, and we are changing with it. Finding a clear and sustainable path for ourselves in a world of uncertainty and ever increasing complexity is challenging, especially when it comes to navigating our career choices. 

Exploring career choices: Navigating paths beyond the resume

When contemplating your next career move, it’s often easy to define yourself by your resume—a math teacher by training, currently a math teacher, and seemingly destined to remain one. Even if you’ve grown tired of teaching, it’s what you know and what you should do. The comfort and security of a fixed career identity plays a significant role in why many continue in professions where passion may have waned.

Nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard thinks that we live in self-limiting ways when we define ourselves by external social expectations or our past education and work experiences. Living within the safety of familiar paths and roles can make change seem impossible, leaving us feeling trapped with no alternatives. Stagnation and disconnection from passion can breed exhaustion and apathy, a state Kierkegaard describes as being lost in the 'finite.'

At some point, though, whether driven by nagging curiosity, an empty feeling, intrigue sparked by a friend's bold career shift, or observations of changes in the job market, we realize that alternative career pathways exist, and some are genuinely inspiring. 

It's exciting to start envisioning yourself in various roles, perhaps even in different locations, collaborating with new people who share your professional vision and dreams. You could use your math skills to code new digital platforms, become an interior decorator like you’ve always wanted, or set up your own education consultancy. 

Yet, actively exploring these options raises questions—retraining needs, financial concerns—that may lead to feeling as stuck and resistant to change as before.

Kierkegaard identifies this anxious state as being “lost in the infinite.” Much like being stuck in predictable situations, this state hinders real change and personal growth due to the anxiety it generates. The paradox arises from the overwhelming freedom presented by numerous options. But the very range of choices and possibilities brings the corresponding fear that you are not entirely sure if you are making the best decision, a phenomenon Kierkegaard terms the “dizziness of freedom.”

The range of choices and possibilities can feel overwhelming in today's globalized, media-saturated landscape. Knowing which options to choose is harder than ever.

Harnessing risk and uncertainty for personal growth and creative innovation

Kierkegaard believes our psychological well-being requires us to navigate a middle path between security, predictability and living in ways and pursuing things we are most passionate about. An imbalance either way leads to despair. 

Therefore, Kierkegaard holds that a fully lived life necessitates some feelings of anxiety. Being uncomfortable, uncertain and taking some well-thought-out risks is invaluable to motivating us to pursue our best lives, our career goals, and, eventually, our true selves. He states that “anxiety becomes a serving spirit that against its will leads him where he wishes to go.”

Writing nearly 80 years later, psychologist Rollo May's book The Meaning of Anxiety expands Kierkegaard’s idea. He states that anxiety, if harnessed to drive us forward, promotes personal growth and creative innovation, which “involves destroying the status quo, destroying old patterns within oneself, progressively destroying what one has clung to from childhood on, and creating new and original forms and ways of living.”

It’s definitely not easy to lean into feelings of anxiety. Still, suppose we reframe it from a wholly negative experience to run from and start to see it as a potential catalyst for personal and professional growth. In that case, we may come closer to living a more authentic and fulfilling life. 

Navigating career crossroads: A call for change

Mainstream social media platforms do not help you make better career decisions.

If teaching math is your passion and you can align it with a fulfilling life, that's fantastic. However, true clarity about this choice only comes from recognizing your options and deliberately choosing this path amid a multitude of alternatives. The ‘What if I’ scenario can quickly transform into ‘I wish I had’ as we reflect on past choices.

You're not the first math teacher to be curious about your future career options and possibilities. But where do you go to find out what you need to know, especially when you’re not exactly sure what information you are looking for?

While friends and colleagues may offer advice, many grapple with the same questions about their own career possibilities. Some prefer to persevere, mildly dissatisfied but content with the paycheck. Almost everyone knows a friend of a friend who took a bold career leap and deeply regretted it, making these conversations cyclical and de-motivating.

In pursuit of a broader view, you likely turn to the internet, hoping to understand better the available options and factors to consider. Yet, nothing is more overwhelming and unproductive than searching for information on Google when you’re unsure of what you are looking for and don’t know what is to be learned.

A Google search won't guide you toward making better, more informed decisions. Similarly, individual websites often lean toward promoting one point of view; biased to whatever they are selling. Relying on social media is equally frustrating–being bombarded by random, out-of-context, and incomplete tidbits of information hardly inspires confidence.

Collective insight: Harnessing collective minds for better career choices

Enter Hunome. Hunome is a virtual platform that enables people from all walks of life and anywhere in the world to think together organically and build collective intelligence.  We aren’t hoping to eradicate an age-old philosophical dilemma. However, we have taken part in enough interesting conversations to know that you and the unique individuals not-so-like-you have a lot of incredible ideas on almost every issue affecting us as people. Many of those insightful conversations have already been lost to the wind and forgotten. However, the Hunome collective thinking platform means these ideas and conversations no longer fall between the cracks. Hunome transforms what was once transient and secluded thinking into a sustainable and expansive resource as more people engage, ensuring that a broader audience can benefit from these valuable insights.

Hunome’s collective sensemaking platform means that you will no longer be overwhelmed by fragmented, disconnected and context-free information overload. Instead, you’ll have the opportunity to access and actively participate in shaping and sharing knowledge and experiences related to the issues that matter to you. By putting people and their nuanced experiences at the forefront leads to a richness, vitality, and future-focused perspective that AI cannot provide or express.

Hunome gives you real-time insights into the evolution of thoughts around a topic or theme. This unique feature enables you to understand how the ideas developed, where agreement and disagreements lie, and gain valuable and actionable insights, like the transferability of your skills to different career paths and the implications of anticipated changes in the future of work for you and society.  Moreover, Hunome can offer a window into the experiences and challenges faced by individuals across diverse locations and life stages who have successfully navigated career changes. This collective perspective provides a comprehensive multidimensional understanding of the many aspects associated with career transitions.

It may sound like a complex undertaking—but it’s really not. Hunomers add their ideas and thoughts in a deceptively simple but powerfully clear and easily accessible manner. 

We call these contributions "Sparks," and where they live "SparkMaps.” 

SparkMaps cultivate collective thinking and facilitate innovation and shared understanding.

SparkMaps provide a collectively built thought blueprint to guide your own thinking, reflect on where the thoughts have led people and add your own contributions and questions. Such rich knowledge, including diverse points of view, empowers you to make better and more sustainable decisions as you consider your future career choices. 

We built Hunome so that people can access important insights and considerations that matter to them. We help you make better and more confident decisions. After all, Kierkegaard said that “life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” 

Get in touch with us or sign up today to begin your journey toward enriched understanding and making sense of your choices here.