A space away from corporate giants
While many of us lament the pull of online corporate giants, we also often neglect our own spaces online and end up like Ana with 5 posts a year. We want to complain about the consolidation, but are unwilling to do anything to affect the issue.
I've seen the same thing in the local cycling group I lead on Tuesday nights. People regularly ask for a ride that's more suited to their speed, and I always ask if they're willing to lead it because I'm already in charge of 2 rides at different speeds on the same night. I'm happy to help them plan routes, and join it a few times as it gets organized, but I can't run 3 rides at different speeds on the same night.
Everyone says no, but they'll still complain that there is nothing to suit them.
If you want your own space away from online giants, start making one. Use the power of hyperlinks to link to others and share the other online writing and spaces you like.
But stop complaining if you're not going to do anything about it. If you're unwilling to do anything, you're part of the problem.
Low grade stress of the gig-economy
The gig-economy, or even freelance work, is touted as freedom. You can choose how much you work. You can choose when you work.
But really it's a source of economic insecurity for most workers.
Economic insecurity exists when a family fears that its income might fall dramatically without advanced notice and without the resources necessary to ride out the risk. Economic insecurity is a state of mind rather than a characteristic of an income flow. - Basic Income for Canadians Loc 685
Unless you're at the top end of the field you don't know where your next contract is coming from. Maybe it won't even come and you'll be left figuring out how to feed your brand new baby and 2 other children and keep a roof over their heads.
That was the position I was in for a good chunk of 2016 and 2017.
It's worth noting that the people talking up the freedom of short-term contract work are often the suppliers of that type of work. Uber's marketing material says you can be your own boss, but Uber can also fire you and leave you no way to talk to a human. So are you really your own boss if someone else can fire you?
Valedictorians don't become top achievers
It's easy to think that success in school means success after school. Get some good grades, show up and do your degree, and you'll earn well.
I've read a few books now that show this isn't really the case. Being the valedictorian shows that you'll sit1 and do what you're told really well2. This is desirable for companies that want to treat you like a tool, a thing they can direct and not get pushback from. You land well out of school, but rarely change the world.
Range talks about this phenomenon as well. The top school performers often do earn more in the first few years of school. It's a number of years on that they're more likely to transition careers because they didn't know what they liked and committed too early to a career. Those that didn't do as well is school, that floated around a bit and tried different things, that settled later on a career, are out earning their go-getter peers a few decades into work.
Those floaters found a better match fit in their career once they finally settled on it. They don't take the step back 10 years into a career to figure out what they really wanted to do, they just keep working because they've found something that works.
