The Next 365 Days
Things are about to change. Not slowly. Not gently.
Your job title will still be on your email signature. The work behind it will already be gone. You'll sit in meetings where everyone knows the agenda doesn't matter anymore. Nobody will say it. The coffee will still be warm. The roles will already be cold.
Students will graduate next spring. Caps in the air, photos with parents. Their degrees will be warm to the touch and already expired. Four years of learning, built for a world that left while they were in class.
Offices will still have desks. Schools will still have bells. Hospitals will still have waiting rooms. The buildings will outlast the reasons they were built.
Your five-year plan will still be in a Google Doc somewhere. The career it describes will feel like directions to a restaurant that closed last month. You'll keep the doc open. You won't update it. You'll know why.
None of this will happen on a single morning. No alarm. No announcement. Just a slow fog that rolls in while you're checking email. And one day you'll reach for something familiar and your hand will close around air.