“A man can do all things if he will.”
-Leon Battista Alberti
For better or worse, the world is heading towards increased globalization. A global marketplace means more competition among employers to create better products at cheaper costs. A global workforce means more competition among employees for the same jobs. I am not an economist, but I do know that when there is more competition, you have to make yourself more competitive in order to stand out. This could mean going back to school, entering a new field, or even just learning a new skill within the field in which you already work.
I know it feels great to keep doing the same thing. I mean, who doesn’t want to just take it easy at work? I know I do. But having seen loved ones laid off, friends struggling to find better jobs, and personally having to hustle in my own life in order to maintain my current standard of living, I have come to appreciate the value of being proactive, rather than reactive. I actually work very well under a moderate amount of pressure, but the problem with waiting until you have pressure bearing down on you is that (1) you might not make the cut in time and (2) it is more stressful because you feel that you are being forced to change instead of acting through your own will.
I am going to suggest that the Age of Globalization is also the Age of the Polymath. To get to the top of the metaphysical mountain even if you choose to specialize in only one discipline, you will have to be well-versed in other seemingly unrelated fields. My wish is that moving forward, you and I maintain a proactive attitude towards learning, to embrace all knowledge no matter whether it relate to the physical, the social, the arts, or the sciences, so that we may develop our faculties to their fullest extent. I don’t want you to learn because you have to, but because you want to. Treat the world as your classroom; your competitors as fellow students; your mistakes, your textbook. Let us become the Leonardo da Vinci’s and the Shen Kuo’s of a new Renaissance, one in which the dividing lines between society and technology, between sensual and intellectual, between work and play, dissolve amidst a sea of modernity.
Multi-skills, experience and creativity rules this new age. Globalisation however will collapse.