Why career management is like riding an absurd merry-go-round

A little useful etymology I stumbled upon – and which explains why career management is about riding a merry-go-round!

Do you feel you are going in circles on a never ending race? Maybe are you ‘managing your career’ Industrial Age style?

‘Career’ comes from the Middle-Age French carriere (race-course), itself a deformation from Latin. It thus means ‘racing’, a competition in scarcity where the few top positions are reserved to those who will be fastest or the strongest.
‘Manage’ comes from the Middle-Age French ‘mesnager’ or Italian ‘maneggiare’ which was used to mean ‘drive a horse’ or ‘hold the reins of a horse’.

I don’t know why and I associated the two ideas and suddenly I was looking at Industrial Age career management as people riding wooden horses on a merry-go-round, always racing and never getting anywhere. Just going around on an absurd race.

Strange thought?

Where is your current racing on the ‘career ladder’ really taking you?