How Friedman Changed My Path

Thomas Friedman, a journalist by trade, has transformed his career path into a translation of politics and globalization into words that the everyday person can understand. He has taken the complex issues of populism and such radical technological changes into a language that somehow calms the mind and screams from a mountain top “EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY”.

But the book did not start out like that. I read over my first few class archives, when we first began reading Thank You For Being Late, and I was so extremely scared of the graph he drew and of all the populist views out there that could potentially wreck our entire economy. I read the book with such anger and fear, that each turn of the page only brought me more stress than the previous one did - BUT this also kept me reading (a very good tool for a journalist and writer).

Then, somehow in Chapter 7, “Just Too Damned Fast”, my mind settled, the dust cleared and I began to breathe. He opens this chapter with two questions:

“Now that we have defined the age of accelerations, two questions come to mind – one primal, and one intellectual. The primal one is this: Are things just getting too damned fast? The intellectual one is: Since the technological forces driving this change in the pace of change are not likely to slow down, how do we adapt?” p. 187

The last portion, “how do we adapt?” takes the turn for the final part of his book, Innovation, and begins to cradle the stressed and scared minds and transform them into ready-to-adapt and prosper individuals. He points out that man has proven to be highly adaptable - proof given through the industrial revolution pushing through 2007. But that blast of the supernova, just set man back a little. We got scared and we tried to hide under our desks and let only a few individuals take control and innovate. THEN, man decided to come out of their hibernation and when they saw how much they needed to adapt, they got angry and blamed everything BUT themselves. NOW, we have some serious catch up to do and we must develop the skills necessary to be lifelong learners.

So how did this affect my professional life? Well, for starters, it has reminded me of the importance of going back to school even after my undergrad AND even after I land a steady job. With everything changing around me at such a quick pace, there are always new trades and tricks to learn as I work my way through my life. My last job could be in a field that has not yet even be created and new technologies could lead this world and my life to levels never imagined. But I cannot get to these levels without learning and adapting to change. I must encourage myself and others to work through the “scary” change and not turn their nose up to the opportunities that expansion and innovation bring.

But this adaptation and learning takes a lot of time and more importantly, money. Which not everyone, including myself, has access to. Maybe the next step in our adaptation is the ability to streamline many certificate courses and allow better access to education for all. This can be done by changing AI into IA, as Friedman speaks about in his book. By taking a technology that can learn and adapt faster than humanly possible and cut down costs across the board, this may free up space for equipping the larger population with the recipe for success to succeed in our ever changing world. Learning is a necessity, but without access to it - man will only crawl further into their cave.

I’d like to leave this note on Thomas Friedman’s book with a powerful message from a reviewer for the New York Times, as he sums up the experience I had with “Thank You For Being Late” better than I could:

“So you don’t finish this book thinking everything is going to be O.K. for the unhappy West — that “you can dance in a hurricane.” There is no easy pill to swallow, and most of the ones being proffered by the extremists are poison. But after your session with Dr. Friedman, you have a much better idea of the forces that are upending your world, how they work together — and what people, companies and governments can do to prosper. You do have a coherent narrative — an honest, cohesive explanation for why the world is the way it is, without miracle cures or scapegoats.”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/books/review/thomas-friedman-thank-you-for-being-late.html

There is no easy way out of the world we live in. 4 years in college will no longer get you a middle-level, middle-class job with a white picket fence family. You have to work hard and learn always. Instead of throwing away the old playbook and starting from scratch, take the lessons Friedman explains and reform the way things are done today. Through an optimistic outlook, we can do anything and everything...and I believe we will.