the.com/career
The thing you chase for forty years and then wonder who was chasing whom.
means Your sequence of jobs and professional progress over a working lifetime — or, as a verb, to move swiftly and uncontrollably.
from From French 'carrière,' a racecourse or road, which traces back through Latin 'carraria' (a track for carts) to 'carrus,' a wheeled vehicle — the same root that gives us 'car' and 'chariot.' So a career was once literally a course you raced along at full tilt, which is exactly why the verb still means to hurtle out of control. The professional sense — your life's chosen track — galloped in later from the metaphor.
- origin
- From Latin carrus, a wheeled wagon's racetrack.
- double meaning
- As a verb, careering means hurtling out of control.
- ladder myth
- Most modern careers zigzag, not climb.
- lifespan
- Average person changes careers five to seven times.
- the irony
- Same word for steady path and reckless plunge.
serena williams tennis — 23 grand slam singles titles across 27 years (1997-2022)
steve jobs apple — founded 1976, returned as ceo 1997, transformed company to $1 trillion valuation