I was going to write more super serious stuff for this blog (I can’t remember what it was, but I’m sure it was Super Serious), but then I went ‘ehhh’. There’s enough Super Serious in the world right now that while I could absolutely add to it, I’m going to step back instead. So this time, we are going to look at multiverse theory and how it could help lighten your stress a little when you are searching for a job.
And in a parallel world, I did write about the Serious Topic, so you see? I’m not being entirely irresponsible. Er, another version of me isn’t anyway.
What is Multiverse Theory?
Once the realm entirely of science fiction (hi Mirror Star Trek) and super heroes (hi justice league), the theory itself has become more and more mathematically sound as new information about quantum physics comes to light.
In essence, the multiverse theory is the idea that there isn’t just one universe, but an infinite number of universes. The shape, size, and composition of them is still widely debated, but the mathematics behind the theory are surprisingly sound. We won’t get into that here – suffice to say that there is more evidence piling up that there could be infinite you’s out there doing infinite things. Some of them of course would be wildly different, but some of them would be almost identical to you save for one or two very minor differences. And so would the infinite number of worlds they live in.
You don’t need to be too weirded out – you’ll never meet the other you’s anyway. It’s still all very theoretical and there would be no way to get there. But it does make for some fun thought experiments, including wondering which roads they took which are different from yours.
The Road Always Taken
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood/
And sorry I could not travel both”
The famous lines from Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ with the theme of course being that you cannot travel all the roads in life and so you have to pick your roads and everything that comes with them.
But in the multiverse theory, you would be taking both roads – one of you takes one and the other takes the other one, so in a cosmic sense (multi-cosmic sense), you would be taking both roads!
What does this have to do with job search?
One of the things which often hangs people up when it comes to job search is not knowing what to go for and a fear of missing out on jobs while chasing other ones. The reality of course is that you can only go for one (well maybe two) jobs, and there will always be that road not taken which makes many people wonder if they made the wrong decision. This worry can be nearly crippling in some cases, with people job bouncing or constantly second-guessing their decisions. And of course, if you’re always wondering whether the grass is greener elsewhere, it’s hard to pay attention to what’s going on around you and enjoy it. This too would impact your job performance.
Even if it isn’t always expressed, there is still the underlying worry about what is being missed out on by taking one job and turning down another, or by working instead of going to school (or vice versa), and so on. Humans are quite good at having a fear of missing out and it’s no wonder that this fear spreads to our professional as well as personal lives.
But we still want you to be happy in wherever you end up (it’s kind of our raisond‘être), so you still need to pick something! However, when you do decide on your next job, training program, volunteer position, and so on and you’re not sure if it’s the right choice, consider this: an infinite number of you’s chose the things you have to pass by which means that in a sense, you’re doing them too!
Now, the other me wrote something more serious than that bit of motivational quantum physics, so I should probably see if there’s a way to get that back.
What would an infinite number of yous do?
