3. Writer and editor Joseph Lewis, who blogs for the website workAwesome.com, suggests one reason why this is the case. Lewis believes that most of our school experiences-from childhood through university- are fairly predictable, while life in the working world is far more ambiguous. In school, for example, the pattern stays more or less the same from year to year. All students have to take a fixed number of classes each year and in those classes they have to do certain things to succeed: study assigned material do homework, and take and pass tests. In the workplace, however, constant change is the norm, and one has to adapt quickly. A project you are working on this month might suddenly change next month or next week and it's often hard to anticipate what you'll be doing six to twelve months from now. Life in the workplace can be uncertain in other ways as well. Lewis notes that in school, for example, you advance each year to the next grade "and that change carries with it a sense of progress, a sense of growth and importance In the workplace, however, "you have no idea when you might be promoted; it depends on the economy, on your coworkers, on your boss or clients, or a hundred other things you can't control.