Liz, I'm 43 this year, so close to the Gen X-millennial border, so I can relate to what you're saying!

Maybe things were already building up before I was born but, to me, it felt like things really shifted right about 1996/1997, just when I was entering uni. It felt like there was a divide between the "old school" kids who wanted to do the formulaic adulting thing, and the "new school" who bought into the startups, and early Internet hype. (Aside: remember those days when the term cybersurfing was supposed to be cool?!)

Ever since then, it's felt like an accelerated cycle of one bubble bursting before another one quickly inflates, with every new half-assed idea being touted as a paradigm shift. In terms of careers, at least, the "cool" ones I can remember shifted from IT consulting, derivatives trading, open source programming, social media, electric cars, then crypto, blockchain, NFT, and goodness knows what else in between.

It's no wonder we feel so discombobulated when every new and hot thing is supposed to be "super disruptive", until it turns out to be not, and then something else completely random turns out to be the next potential disruptor.