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            “If you could look into a crystal ball and see yourself in ten years working at the same job in the same place as you are now, what would be your gut reaction?”  When people working in the helping professions (ranging from paraprofessional addiction counselors to psychiatrists) are asked this question, they give answers like these:

“Just awful.”

“I’d feel like an idiot.”

“I’d probably be drunk.”

“The pits:”

“I couldn’t even imagine it.”

“Oh, brother:”

“I’d kill myself first.”

“Yuk:”

“I’d be dead,”

 “I’d feel like a caged animal.”

“No way;”

“Forget it:”

“Sorry, but it just doesn’t fit into my plans.”

            It appears that for some people the 10-year projection into the future serves as a moment of truth about the present.  It creates the detachment, the psychological distance, that enables people to “think the unthinkable” and face the dark side of their lives.  It is easier to say, “I’d be stagnated doing this 10 years from now” than “I’m stagnated now.”  A person who rationalizes that a particular job is “great” and who in 10 years probably will rationalize that the same job is “good enough” may yet feel – and be willing to say – that that job would not be such a great one to have in 10 years.

Burnout, Jerry Edelwich with Archie Brodsky