Carroll, chaos and careers

The themes of identity and growth are key to both the world of careers and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It wasn’t this though, but two other key passages that stood out to me in a recent re-reading of the novel.

In chapter one, Alice:

“…was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies”

What a brilliant metaphor for career-related choices. Daisy-chains are typically part of an idyllic picture - a simple pleasure that anyone can achieve. So here, the daisy-chain could easily represent a role in which we will feel happy and relaxed - our careers idyll, if you will. However, daisy-chains require work and the pleasure they bring is only temporary, before the next daisy-chain needs to be worked on. As such, the daisy-chain needs to promise a sufficient level of pleasure in order to make it worth the effort. Alice is considering: if the journey towards a goal is considered a "trouble", is the goal really worth it?

Immediately after this passage, the White Rabbit runs past Alice and she instantly forgets the daisy-chain, in order to follow a new goal that takes inordinately more time and effort than the daisy-chain would have done. Haven’t we all been here (let alone advised clients in this position)? It is easy to find ourselves demotivated to meet a goal – perhaps even inactive. It is important though to find the root cause of any inactivity: being too much "trouble" suggests a mis-match between the goal and what we are really seeking.

The Footman summarises this neatly in chapter 6:

““How am I to get in?” asked Alice again, in a louder tone.

“Are you to get in at all?” said the Footman. “That’s the first question, you know.”

It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so.””

Alice was looking for something to relieve her boredom but her original goal didn't motivate her. She clearly isn’t the creative type – her floristry/millinery dreams are just not ‘her’. Instead the path of a detective/adventurer comes much more naturally and willingly.

I say naturally and willingly - but not necessarily knowingly, at least in the first instance. Alice has no plans to go on an adventure when she follows the White Rabbit, this is purely incidental. The second of the two passages I referred to is in chapter three and explores this idea that not all our career decisions are planned:

“First it [the Dodo] marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (“the exact shape doesn’t matter,” it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no “One, two, three, and away,” but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out “The race is over!” and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, “But who has won?”

This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”

Is this not a metaphor for a career? There is a traditional view that races (and careers) should have a start and a finish, that we should be racing against others, travelling as fast as possible and there are ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. Carroll’s race though is much more akin to something out of the chaos theory of careers – the participants know they are in a race but take each step at a time, adapting their pace, starting locations and even when they participate at all.

Whilst everyone achieves something from the journey (by winning), the prizes cause “noise and confusion”. Again, a parallel could be drawn here: what we gain from our endeavours isn’t always what we expect – an area where careers professionals can provide support, an opportunity for reflection and help considering the route forward.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has much more to offer in terms of lessons on careers, but at the risk of going on too long, I’ll end this article on a third quote, from chapter 11 – one that I think further supports the idea of Lewis Carroll as an advocate for Chaos Theory:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

References:

MARCR for Career Professionals, Chaos Theory of Careers marcr.net/marcr-for-career-professionals/career-theory/career-theories-and-theorists/chaos-theory-of-careers-pryor-and-bright/

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm