MIND newsletter: History and intergenerational relations in choosing career
Happy Saturday everyone! 😉
1. M (Challenge your mindset)
Tomorrow is a special day in Vietnam. Apr 30th 1975 marks the day the last American troops left Vietnam, the moment when the North and the South of Vietnam were reunited – so every year, on this Reunification Day (sometimes called Liberation of Saigon Day), families take advantage of a long vacation to spend time with each other.
I wasn’t born during the wartime, but my parents did. Never have I thought how the war that happened many decades ago might affect the way I approached my career. Yet, the saying “everything is connected” couldn’t be truer in this case.
I often talk about the importance of self-reflection and self-awareness in career design, yet our interaction with the world is not a one-way street. The question shouldn’t stop at just “How do you see yourself in this world?” but also “How does this world shape the person you are today?”, starting from things closer to your heart: your culture, your family, your country history.
History.
Most of my parents’ childhood and teenage years were with gunfire, explosions, famine. At the age of 10, my Dad was already an excellent buffalo shepherd, fisherman, cake maker, carpenter – because that is the only way he could support his family as the oldest son. The absence of peace haunted people growing up during this time as they suffered to put food on the table while protecting their lives and the lives of people around them.
My parents long for peace. With those war years passed, what they truly define as happiness is stability – stable income, a secured job, a small home with a roof on top. Learning about history helps me make sense of my parents’ approach, advice and expectation for their children’s careers.
I – and younger generations after mine, on the other hand – long for something else. I did not have access to full Internet and laptop until around high school years. This perhaps explains my quest for knowledge, when unanswered questions back in my childhood are now answered, one by one. Yet put my generation side by side with the younger one, even though we might not have had proper exposure to technology and global knowledge early enough, we didn’t have to experience a high level of social pressure (mainly from social media) and distortion of information either.
All of that to say, history and intergenerational relations have so much to do with how we make our career decision and how we respect the decision of others.
2. I (I’m my own coach)
Forget about labels like baby boomer, gen X, gen Z,… and think about these questions:
- What is the one thing people should know about your country’s history to understand you?
- How have the country’s political, economic and technological events shaped you? How have they shaped your loved ones and people around you?
- How does where you live now impact you?
3. N (The power of Now)
Take the person whose career viewpoint is very different from yours. Try to walk in their shoes for a moment. What is one thing you could learn about their life, about their sociocultural environment in order to understand them better?
4. D (Do)
How does this reflection tie to your next step in your career?
