고등학교 영어Ⅱ (미래엔 김성연) 연계 글

Ask adults how they came to do what they do today, and many will mention an event that they never planned. What turns a life in a new direction can be something small: an unexpected meeting, a job opening that appears at just the right moment, or a class chosen only because it fits a schedule. In one survey reported in 1996, 237 older adults were asked whether chance events had influenced their careers. Among the men, 63 percent answered yes, and among the women, 57 percent did.

Even at the end of the twentieth century, however, career counseling was still commonly viewed as a process designed to remove chance from career decisions. It was this mismatch that led three counseling experts in California to propose a different approach in 1999. They were the career counselor Kathleen Mitchell, the counselor educator Al Levin, and John Krumboltz, a professor of education and psychology at Stanford University. Together, they argued that traditional methods no longer prepared clients to address the uncertainties of a shifting world of work. They gave their approach a name that sounds like a contradiction: planned happenstance. Because happenstance means "chance," the phrase seems to join two ideas that cannot exist together.

What the three authors meant, however, was not that people should simply wait for luck. They described unplanned events as both inevitable and desirable and urged counselors to teach clients to take part in exploratory activities that would raise the chances of discovering unexpected opportunities. In their view, it was through such activities that an unplanned event could become an opportunity for learning.

The authors also described five skills that help people recognize, create, and use chance events. Curiosity means exploring new learning opportunities, and persistence means continuing to make an effort despite setbacks. Flexibility involves changing one's attitudes and circumstances, while optimism means seeing new opportunities as possible and attainable. Risk taking means acting even when the outcome is uncertain.

In a later article, Krumboltz wrote that what people should be when they grow up need not be mapped out ahead of time. He recommended that counselors teach clients to try a variety of interesting activities, to notice their reactions, and to stay alert to other opportunities. For Krumboltz, the goal of counseling is to help people take actions toward more satisfying lives, not to make a single career decision. From this point of view, it is not luck alone that shapes a career. What people do before and after an unexpected event matters just as much.