The risk for individuals is that in keeping up one zigs when the market and general practice zags.

FORBES: Rethinking the Concept of "Outliers": Why Non-Experts are Better at Disruptive Innovation

Even if those brave assumptions turn out to be right, there will surely be plenty more zigs and zags in the UK recovery before 2012 is done.

BBC: Britain's zig-zag economy

Alt-J 's debut, "An Awesome Wave" (Canvasback), mixes alt-rock, electronica, experimental a cappella vocals and folk in a clever album that zigs and zags with each track.

WSJ: Lost in the Trees, Frank Ocean, John Fullbright and Other Best of 2012

But Sarah Tebbens, a geophysicist at the University of South Florida, noticed that the zigs and zags were similar to those that form on the surface of lava lakes in volcanic craters.

ECONOMIST: Geophysics

Benson, curator of the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies at the museum, has chosen 150 works that document the zigs and zags of Richter's life as he tried various disciplines and one -ism after another.

WSJ: Avant-Garde Film's Godfather | Hans Richter | Los Angeles County Museum of Art | Richard B. Woodward