It's a paradigm shift on D-4 day

One of my favourite comic strips is by Scott Adams, the author of The Dilbert Principle, where one of Dilbert's co-workers brings in the nebulous concept of a paradigm. The conversation goes thus:

Co-worker: My new project is a whole new paradigm.
Dilbert: What's a paradigm?
Co-worker: Heh-heh..."What's a paradigm"... Funny.
Dilbert: Seriously, what is it?
Co-worker: You know, paradigm, paradigmism... As in, "This project is a paradigm". But enough about my project... Tell us about your project.
Dilbert: It's a paradigm.

I explained this strip to a PR executive I'd met at a friend's drinks do. He laughed until he was shaking, then he explained: "In this industry, if you said that 'the project is a whole new paradigm', that means someone's made a huge f_uck up."

In the true sense of the word, I think I am currently going through a paradigm shift - from someone who never considered getting married, to someone who is about to; from someone who wouldn't have dreamed of quitting her job, to someone who has; from someone who planned everything down to the last minute, to someone who has only just decided when she'll be arriving in New York, and doesn't know what she's going to be doing next.

Initially, this change felt like regression rather than Progress (that's progress with a capital 'P', as in Porsche, Prada and Patek Phillipe). Even though it was of my own choice that I had quit, I felt like an ungraceful dropout from the rat race, a failure. Rather uncharacteristically of me, I worried that other people might think of me that way, too. If I substitute this career for something less well-paid, isn't that going down a notch in the eyes of the Joneses next door? At this suggestion, M. flared up like a torch hit with a gas pipe.
"Now how f_ucked up is that?" he almost yelled down the phone. "If those people think like that, then they really have the wrong priorities in life!"
(I was very glad I'd referred to my worries only in the context of another acquaintance of mine, who'd swapped her hectic City life in London for a laid back existence in Sydney). I decided then that perhaps following my loved one's dicta would not be so bad; my priorities should be to enjoy this period of undefined existence (as in, unemployment) for as long as possible.

So I will go through another paradigm shift - from occasionally scary and permanently stressed, foul-tempered lawyer, to a sweet-smelling, tree-hugging, yogic street bum. I will sprinkle flower petals on people's heads and wear multi-coloured woolly jumpers. I may even sing *.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is also known as Progress.


* I will be available for bar mitzvahs (if you ever need a British Korean non-Jew in attendance, I'm the one) and children's parties.