Why the Multitudes Will Never Be Successful.

The other day I read a truly depressing article on Medium. Its title was, “Why America Is the World’s First Poor Rich Country.”

Lest that title seem not to make sense, its basic thrust was that while average American incomes are higher than in most other places in the world, the cost of living in the U.S. — the cost of basic necessities such as food and health care — has skyrocketed over the past few decades. We can debate the causes, but not the basic facts of the matter.

It’s true enough, a lot of social and economic dynamics in civilization have gone against the middle class over the past few decades. Employment does not, and may never again, promise the stability, much less upward mobility, that it did back in the 1950s and 1960s, the decades that gave Americans the strongest economy and the largest financially independent middle class the world had ever seen.

What can “we” do about it? is not the question I propose to raise here, though.

What can you do about your situation? Now that’s more like it!

When I read about now the sometimes-former middle class is struggling, part of me admittedly looks to causes like globalization and the replacement of jobs with technology. There’s no point in pretending these aren’t real and aren’t causing grief.  

Another part of me wants to ask: what are people doing to improve themselves by improving their skills. I don’t mean mere “job skills,” but the kinds of skills that could help them be more independent: skills like managing their time, budgeting more carefully, and looking for ways to educate themselves inexpensively or even free of cost?

I see a lot of trends among the multitudes, I’ll call them, that make me acutely uneasy. And since these trends sell, they encircle us.  

I see more and more videos in the newsfeeds I look at following my self-imposed writing duties in the morning, and fewer and fewer articles of any depth. I see, that is, market-driven pandering to the multitudes’ desire to be entertained above everything else, and possibly conscious avoidance of the things that would enable them to improve their lives over time.

Some misguided souls will even defend such trends, or tell us we have little choice but to just accept them.  

Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago, I wrote an admittedly demanding two-part entry on my philosophy blog. I won’t distract you by linking to it; its subject matter is not important here. But to see what I was trying to do in that article, one had to read it with some care. “Skimming” was not an option.

Folks griped that it was too long: in Internet-speak: TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read). They wanted a Cliff Notes version … or maybe they wanted to watch me, passively, doing a video, Jordan Peterson style.

Twenty-first century technology has given us some amazing things! Last Saturday, I sat in my home office here in Santiago, Chile, and had a phone conversation with a dear friend back in South Carolina where I used to live; and then, less than an hour later, a face-to-face meeting on Zoom with a different friend who lives in New Zealand.

It’s hard to knock what modern communications technology has accomplished.

But it has its dark side.

If I went looking, I’m sure I could find studies showing how the way a lot of us have used technology has shortened our attention spans while raising our demand for instant gratification.

From the standpoint of productivity, this is NOT a good thing!

Productivity requires investments of energy and sometimes capital, but above all, it requires planning, time, and patience. It requires a willingness to study sometimes difficult material and be willing to work at understanding it. That’s what’s disappearing from the collective mindset of the multitudes … and corrupting the marketplace which increasingly services short attention spans with more and more videos and fewer and fewer articles of substance … because the former make money!  

Passive reception of information requires less of us than active reading and thinking about what one has just read (maybe having taken notes, always a good idea). That’s why so many people prefer the former over the latter. We have a natural tendency to take the path of least resistance through life.

This worries me! Not because I’m a natural born writer who doesn’t care for the way he looks on video (I’ve tried: don’t ask).

It worries me because lately, as I prepare to begin a career writing copy for businesses, foundations, and possibly other organizations who need writers to solve their problems and achieve their goals, I see what it takes to succeed at this, and it’s not all that different from what it takes to succeed at any of the most likely careers of the future: self-motivation, an ability to set goals and determine the work it will take to achieve them, develop time management skills to get that work done, a capacity to defer gratification till the day’s work is done, and also a willingness to reach out to the right peers and build accountability networks based on similar success-focused values.

Above all, one must practice self-discipline and be prepared to purposefully step outside one’s comfort zone.

When I look at many who are struggling, and I don’t doubt that their pain is real, I don’t see these practices. I see the former. They manage to afford the latest iPhone, for example (usually having bought it on credit). If they must watch a video, it will be some comedy or something celebrity-focused instead of something educational.

What bothers me more: I know of conservative writers with whom I agree on many things saying we should “just let the marketplace operate” when all the marketplace really does is give the multitudes what they want … even when what they want is causing them more problems than it is solving, and bringing them more grief than happiness!

Do I want to place more “government interferences” on the marketplace, or otherwise make people behave as I think they should?

No.

I prefer the path I’m walking now, which is patient education … but it does require folks to read (you don’t see a video here, do you?).

And I make the point that success requires success-focused values. The reason more of the multitudes will not be successful is that they do not have, and won’t adopt, success-focused values.

For while adopting success-focused values doesn’t guarantee you success in this life (nothing short of divine intervention can do that!), failure to adopt them will guarantee lack of success, struggles, more suffering.

What’s sad is that it’s not necessary!

You can change.

You can put down your phone, and not use WhatsApp every 30 seconds or so. You don’t have to check email obsessively. You can tune out social media long enough to appreciate your real-world surroundings. You can even turn off your television.

I’m saying anyone should give up these things. Do them at certain times of the day, set aside in advance, like scheduled appointments.

All of this stands in opposition to the credo of the impulsive: “If it feels good, do it!” And right now!

Remember: if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, whatever it is, you’ll get the same results you’ve been getting.

I think it was Einstein who once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

So if this is you, stop and think about your choice of passive reception of information versus active reading and learning and skill-building for independence: financial and otherwise.

With that in mind, I challenge you — I pray you’ve followed me this far! — to read something more demanding than this before the end of your day. And then do the same thing tomorrow and then the next day.

Until reading becomes a habit, one of your best. You will not regret it.

[Author’s note: if you believe this article was worth your time, and want to see more like it, please consider supporting my writing with a pledge at my Patreon.com site.]