How I Got The World's Best Job

I have the world's best job. I'm a Futures Therapist. It's my job to help men, women, and children learn to live well in the world of the future. Really, there is no single future we are moving towards, but a number of possible futures. Most therapists are trying to help people to adapt to a world that no longer exists. Since the profession of Futures Therapist may be new to you, let me explain how I got it into it and how you can too.

In 1965 I graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara and was on my way to U.C. San Francisco School of Medicine. I wasn't sure I wanted to be a doctor, but it seemed like the most impressive calling to have and my educated, Jewish, relatives thought that having a doctor in the family would be wonderful.

That summer I chanced on an article in Horizon Magazine by Alvin Toffler. In it he coined the term "future shock" to describe the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time. The article didn't impress me. As a 21 year-old graduate on my way to medical school, moving to a new town, engaged to be married, I thought change was wonderful, the more the better.

I started medical school in September. I was immediately overwhelmed, frightened, and disoriented; so much to memorize, so many people to deal with. I didn't sleep for two weeks, decided medicine wasn't for me, walked out of my anatomy class, and told the dean I was dropping out.