The Conceptual Age

The Conceptual Age Society has gone through stages, each one spurred by the want or need of improving life. At the beginning of time, society was based on hunting and gathering and then it advanced to the agricultural age. Then we moved into the industrial age, and recently, the information age. But now we are heading into a new stage, the Conceptual age. To adjust to and prosper in this age, people will need to develop skills in creating artistic and emotional beauty, in detecting patterns and opportunities, in crafting a satisfying narrative, and in combining seemingly unrelated ideas into a novel invention, and people will also need the ability to empathize, to understand subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one's self and
The standard of living has risen dramatically in just the past couple of generations. It used to be that owning a home and a car was an achievement that signaled a successful life. Now it is common for any person with a license to own a car, or even more than one car. The self-storage industry is growing also, because people need even more space to house all their extra stuff. Abundance is evident in the amount of waste we produce, which America has more of than any other country, because we throw away many things we cannot store. So it is no longer enough for something to be reasonably priced and functional. Products require qualities such as uniqueness, beauty, spirituality, or emotion to make them stand out. People are being liberated by their prosperity but are not fulfilled by it; they are resolving this paradox by searching for
America especially is so concentrated on purely analytical thinking that it is limiting opportunities for the leaders of the future. Tests like the SAT, MCAT, ACT and others to measure intelligence are a gate which only lets high analytical intelligence pass through, when actually this kind of intelligence accounts for only a small percentage of career success. The most proficient and effective leaders are ones with skills these tests do not measure. As a result, many people with these skills who have a great potential to be leaders and managers might not even get into college. Some of these skills reflect a capacity for compassion, care, and uplifting the human spirit. Not to say that those aptitudes are the only requirements of success. One must be able to use these skills intelligently. Some career paths that are becoming more popular, and also drawing a higher salary, are nursing, counseling, and hands-on health care