Competence is dead

Competence used to be very valuable in our industrial culture. Here, follow the instructions. Don’t make mistakes. Get paid.

And now we are moving away from competence. Does anyone really know what is going to happen the next twenty years? How about ten?

The culture is moving too fast for anyone of us to keep up. We live in a constant state of change which means there is no time to be competent.

The alternative is to adapt. Learn a skill that can’t easily be duplicated. Pick up a book instead of watching Netflix. Start a blog. Want to become a screen writer? Write a play for the local theater and give it away.

The factory worker is a dying profession. And it isn’t just factories–any job that can be written down can easily be replicated. And if it can be replicated, they can find someone cheaper.

It doesn’t matter what happens next if we put together a resilient system to withstand the winds. The best you can do is make yourself indispensable in a world that is increasingly pushing us to be mediocre.