A reader recently asked me for tips on how, and when, to switch careers. It's a question I've been asked a few times recently.
I've done a lot of research on this topic and would like to share with you some of the things I've learned.
First, a little background. In just the past century, a vast number of jobs have been created that did not exist before: website designer, DNA specialist, publicist, astronaut.
What that means, quite obviously, is that people have an increasingly wide array of options to exercise their inner potential. You're not stuck carrying on the family farm (though if that's your goal, more power to you).
Then why does it seem nearly one in three people are unhappy in their jobs? Why is it that even when you finally reach or are near the pinnacle of your profession - when you're making the nice bucks and buying the nice things - you still feel unfulfilled?
One reason is demographics. We are living longer, which means we have longer working lives. Even on the mainland, during a period that was often riven with catastrophe, life expectancy has jumped phenomenally - from 35 years in 1949 to 72 in the early 21st century.
If you were to hurl yourself back more than 200 years, when average life expectancy was fewer than 40 years, you'd encounter cherubic-faced people accomplishing great professional feats. Charles Darwin was just 22 when he sailed the HMS Beagle on his voyage of evolutionary discovery. William Shakespeare is believed to have been in his mid-20s when he penned Henry VI, Part I, his first play. And so on.