One might be led to believe there was something confusing about navigating one’s career in the world of work. And confusion there is, to one who is not equipped with guides and maps.

As one looks at the many factors which might derange his life and undermine his security, the impression is, confusion seems well founded and it can be said with truth that all difficulties are fundamentally confusions. Given enough menace, enough unknown, a man ducks his head and tries to swing through it blindly. He has been overcome by confusions.

Enough unsolved problems add up to a huge confusion. Every now and then, on his job, enough conflicting orders bring the worker into a state of confusion. A modern plant can be so poorly managed that the entire thing appears to be a vast confusion to which no answer is possible.

Luck is the usual answer one resorts to in a confusion. If the forces about one seem too great, one can always “rely on his luck.” By luck we mean “destiny not personally guided.” When one turns loose of an automobile wheel and hopes the car will stay on the road by luck, he is often disappointed. And so it is in life. Those things left to chance become less likely to work themselves out. One has seen a friend shutting his eyes to the bill collectors and gritting his teeth while he hopes that he will win at the races and solve all his problems. One has known people who handled their lives this way for years. Indeed, one of English novelist Charles Dickens’ great characters had the entire philosophy of “waiting for something to turn up.” But luck, while we grant that it is a potent element, is only necessary amid a strong current of confusing factors. If one has to have luck to see him through, then it follows that one isn’t any longer at his own automobile wheel and it follows, too, that one is dealing with a confusion.

It would be wise, then, to understand exactly what a confusion is and how it could be resolved.