It's not your fault that you "don't know what you want to do" - The single characteristic of people who will be most disadvantaged in the AI era
I don't know what I want to do.
If there were a ranking of Japanese people's worries in life, this would definitely be among the top. Whether in their 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s, regardless of their titles or career backgrounds, a significant number of people voice the same concern. And they all think, "It's my fault for not knowing what I want to do."
But I want to be clear. It's not your fault that you don't know what you want to do.
Compulsory education is a device for producing ”soldiers of capitalism.”
The education we have received is always considered optimal, taking into account years of adjustments.
Instill basic knowledge, outline humanity, and confine thought and behavior within a certain framework. Finally, complete and ship them as soldiers of capitalism.
A person capable of accurately performing assigned tasks. A person who can follow manuals. A person who can reproduce a predetermined correct answer. This is carefully cultivated over about 12 to 16 years.
It's impossible to tell someone who has lived 20, 30, or 40 years thinking only about answering questions within that structure to suddenly "find what they truly want to do deep down." Frankly, if they had used that kind of thinking, they probably wouldn't have survived this long. They would have sealed it away during their student years.
So this isn't about the immediate challenge of whether or not one has the ability to find what they want to do, but rather about the social structure, and that to genuinely address the problem, rehabilitation is necessary.
AIIn this era, those who don't know what they want to do are at the greatest disadvantage.
Here comes another structural change, like a giant tsunami. It's AI.
Until now, I was able to make a living doing what I "had to do," even if I didn't have anything I wanted to do. Completing assigned tasks, working according to manuals, memorizing correct answers and reproducing them—all of these could be converted into salary, which in turn was automatically converted into "happiness."
However, in the age of AI, these "things you have to do" will be increasingly replaced by AI. What remains are only "things you want to do." The ability to ask questions. The ability to create meaning. The ability to act on your own motivation.
In other words, the very structure that has allowed us to accept "not knowing what we want to do" is now collapsing due to AI. Those who don't have "what they want to do" will be at the greatest disadvantage in the coming era. Conversely, those who find it will be the strongest.
What you want to do is not something you find, but something you reclaim
Many people make a mistake here. They search for "let's find what I want to do," use self-analysis tools, and take strengths assessments. But nothing comes up.
That's only natural. What I want to do isn't something that falls from the outside. The work that comes first is recovering the core of my own motivation, something that was pushed down during my education and further chiseled away during my working life.
To return oneself, optimized for the world, back to an innocent human. This is not a story that can be concluded through introspection alone. It is a series of concrete practices that involve changing your environment, expanding your scope, and restarting your sensory antennas.
It's not that you don't know what you want to do because you're slow. You just haven't been taught how to get it back yet. I want to start right away before it's too late.
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