In case you haven’t noticed, the world has been changing and continues to do so at a rapid pace. It feels like chaos, because it is.
But while this chaos has caused enormous problems, it has also had an upside. It has made people seriously question what they have accepted, whether in their personal lives or what happens in public life.
I’ve noticed serious shedding of old ways of being for many people. I’m noticing many people starting to say they don’t want to live the same way anymore, whether it is personally or by accepting larger forces that shape our lives. They are realizing they can’t trust institutions for stable employment, for example, and are coming up with creative ways to build more stability by working for themselves.
My chief of staff is a great example of this. After being laid off, she started her own consulting practice and feels a greater sense of ownership over her future by having diversified income sources and working for herself. In her own words: “Stability and certainty do not inherently come from having a full-time job. Stability and certainty come from knowing that no matter what the situation, I will be able to figure it out.” She has been running her business for two years now. Within the last six months, she’s seen a significant uptick in people reaching out to ask how she built her business as an independent consultant, mentioning that they want to do something similar in the next six to twelve months. In the first year and a half of her striking out on her own, there were substantially fewer (if any) of these calls.
I hear from people of both parties that they are disgusted by the political party they always supported. I’ve lost count of my Democratic friends who are enraged by how feckless they find Democrats in the face of what is happening to the country. They aren’t becoming Republicans, they just simply don’t trust the people they used to trust to run the country in a way I’ve never heard them express before. I have Republican friends who find the party they belonged to and often worked for completely revolting.
They aren’t willing to be loyal soldiers anymore.
I’ve seen a lot of people let go of or lose things that were key to their identity, and who are now asking, “Who am I really? Who do I want to be? What kind of world do I want to live in?”
They aren’t looking to the old authorities to tell them what that should be. They are following their own guidance.
Different people pin the beginning of the chaos at various points. There was a major shift when Donald Trump was elected in 2016—a complete disruption of the political order. His re-election was an even more radical disruption because he came back into office untethered by any desire to have establishment figures in his orbit, which in the first term provided at least a few guardrails.
COVID was another obvious turning point that reshaped how we operate in society. Far too many people got used to being alone and stopped venturing out as much, even when it was safe to do so. But being used to something doesn’t make it healthy. We moved into an era where many people now feel it’s fine to bail on plans with friends or family last minute because they are engaging in “self-care” or whatever. Over the last few years, social media was awash with videos of people who planned a dinner party, or even a birthday party, had a swarm of RSVP’s and then found themselves sitting there with just a few people, or in the worst cases, no people.