Author Seth Godin recently published an insightful piece about the “forever recession.” He writes:

“The first is the cyclical one, the one that inevitably comes and then inevitably goes. There’s plenty of evidence that intervention can shorten it, and also indications that overdoing a response to it is a waste or even harmful.

The other recession, though, the one with the loss of ‘good factory jobs’ and systemic unemployment–I fear that this recession is here forever.”

As recently as thirty years ago a person could get by knowing one very specific skill, the “factory job” that Godin refers to. As long as they showed up everyday and performed their task, they would get paid and live a relatively normal life. There are still a number of jobs and industries that operate this way, but that is changing rapidly. The ones that do remain are probably living on other continents.

So how, then, do you succeed in the twenty first century? That’s a question I ask myself every single day. There is no simple answer. Kyle Baxter, another favorite writer of mine, wrote a thoughtful response to Godin’s piece, one worth reading as well. He writes:

“The only thing holding us back now is ourselves. We are all artists, designers, manufacturers, managers, musicians, writers, creators—if we choose to be. And that is the fundamental difficulty of this new age: we all are responsible for our own success.”

While that may sound like “a bunch of hippy shit,” I think there’s a lot of truth to that statement. Never before has the world required people to have as many skills and to juggle as many hats as right now.

The most glaring skill that comes to mind is that of the internet. Older generations like to declare that the Facebooks and Twitters of the world are ruining the way we interact. I couldn’t disagree further. They, in fact, are priming people to be publishers and in a broader sense, creators. Even on the smallest of levels – sending a one hundred forty character tweet – this is massively important. They represent a shift in power of information. Sure, there have been missteps along the way. These missteps, though, shouldn’t discount the potential. Instead of the mass media controlling the messages we see, hear and read, the power lies with the people. Individuals can now influence millions of people at a cost of exactly zero dollars. The winners of future generations will be the ones who figure out how they can affect others by using the skills and the tools that are presenting themselves right now.

I could be wrong of course. Maybe the future lies in something we don’t yet know about, something that won’t come about for a while. I’d be willing to bet, though, that what’s happening right now will influence the way we live well into the future. The tools are here, now. I certainly haven’t figured out the best way to use them, but I’m trying.