HW for 3/18

From the Drucker reading, it is established how important it is to manage the second part of one's life. When men or women reach between the ages of 45-48, they usually have hit a dead-end point in their job, meaning they are not really learning anything new and they have already put in a probable good 25 years. In order to avoid the boredom and depression that could result from having this mid-life crisis, Drucker explains that its very important to come up with a parallel career; find something to do at a non-profit organization or find some other type of work that you can learn to excel at. The key to managing this second part of your life is beginning to plan for it before you reach that point. The reality is that most people are just lazy and have the belief that organizations outlive workers which is undeniably true. Although, it is way too early to begin to plan for my potential second career when I have yet to even start my first, I can do things now that will enable me to have more options. As the reading says, knowledge workers have mobility- mobility in the sense that people who have had a broad education have the ability to more freely move across the job market. Manual labor workers do not have this same liberty. In knowing this, I am grateful that I have completed a successful undergraduate career and plan to continue that education to graduate school sometime in the near future. As I will then classify as a knowledge worker, I will have a lot more options open to me when I am 45+ years of age and my children are grown up. As I am engaged within my first career, I will know to always be thinking ahead of how to continually make myself happy down the road.

An important point from the Covey reading is distinguishing the difference between dependence, independence and interdependence. Dependent people look to others to validate their happiness and to make their decisions. Independent people can function completely on their own physically, mentally and emotionally as all of their drive comes from within and are unaffected by others feelings. Independence is a huge achievement in itself, however it is important to recognize the power of interdependence. Interdependence stresses the power of 'we' as in our combined efforts can make something happen. Interdependent people have matured more as they realize that although they are self-capable, the combined efforts of 2 people could produce a much better product than if were produced by one person alone. Independent people choose to become interdependent because they have that character type whereas a dependent person cannot just choose to combine efforts with someone else to force interdependence because they themselves cannot succeed on their own. The understanding of the maturing process between independence to interdependence allows people to realize their full potential in society. However, it is not just that anyone can be either of these things, rather only some people have the specific character and personality type. Before reading this, I never really understood the difference between independence and interdependence or saw interdependence as superior. I would consider myself an independent person as I am able to think for myself, complete tasks on my own and are usually relatively unaffected to external sources. Knowing that, it would be easy for me to become an interdependent person with a co-worker or future husband. Within the corporate world, interdependent people succeed over those who are independent as they are able to work together and use double the brain power. I think it would be easy for me to fall into being completely independent instead of utilizing my capability to be interdependent as I usually like to do things on my own. After reading this, I now know I am going to have to sacrifice my desire to be completely independent for a much more profitable and successful interdependent relationship.

In class, we discussed the difference between good advice and questionable advice and the importance in realizing the distinction. An example of universally good advice would be to ask questions to someone rather than talking at them whereas questionable advice would be to be totally selfless. Being totally selfless opens up too many doors for people to take advantage of you, but at the same time it allows you to be a lot more open than if you were so consumed with yourself. Advice is being thrown at us all the time through both our personal and academic lives and it is important to sort through that advice in order to decide what is important and applicable to us. In reference to Carnegie's book, we all pretty much agreed that it was all 'good advice' such as you should never criticize or condemn people. As I consider myself a pretty stubborn person, I know I only take advice from my parents and people I am really close to just because I want to be sure that advice is looking out for my best interest. Advice that I have carried throughout the years and consider useful is 'believe in yourself'. If you do not believe and have faith in yourself and your inherent capabilities, it will inevitably be very difficult for you to trust others and reach your fullest potential in life.

I thought the class activity of the Myers-Briggs test was very helpful and interesting. It is important for people to answer questions about themselves such as these every so often to understand what kind of person they are. We all know a lot about ourselves, but having concrete facts and descriptions of ourselves in front of us helps to narrow 'us' down and put things in perspective. The personality type exercise was important as it allowed us to discuss what characteristics we need or things we need to achieve success in our 'dream job' based on our type. The test showed whether you were more of a senser or feeler, an extrovert or introvert etc. I really enjoyed reading the different articles about my personality type and thought it was important to hear that about myself. I got the type of ESFP which kind of shocked me a little bit because I thought I had pretty good intuition but based on how I answered the questions, I have now learned something new about myself. Knowing  my type helps to let me know what jobs I would perform well at and others that I wouldn't as well as it allows me to set realistic goals for myself based on certain characteristics.