Why Americans Are Starting
To Lose
The World Race For Prosperity?
Foreword
First, I would
like to note that I don't talk about America as a country. I talk about
Americans - people who have been born here, in America. I talk about
Americans in forth, third, maybe even second generation.
Many of those
people grew up with a sense of entitlement for having a good life, but then met
face-to-face with harsh realities like student loans, unreachable housing, absence
of any savings, super-expensive medical treatment, etc.
At the same time,
the population in some old and new rivals or allies, like Russia, China, Brazil,
India has been enjoying gradual economic improvement.
However, despite
the decline in well-being of many American-born Americans, the strength of
America as a country as a whole is being supported by the influx of affluent
immigrants.
Secondly, “starting
to lose” does not mean that the loss is inevitable. For example, in sport there
have been many instances when an athlete or a team would come to a victory from
behind.
Let’s begin
This piece came to
life as a reaction to a post I stumbled-upon on when checking LinkedIn.
Someone found a
picture on the internet and posted it on LinkedIn.
The statement does
not make any sense!
But yet 420,105
LinkedIn members liked the picture, and 9,020 members gave some positive comment.
No one wanted to
see the contradiction between what integrity is – by its definition, and what
the statement tells.
So, let’s start
from a definition (a very important step in a process called “scientific
reasoning”).
Nowadays, one does
not have to run to a library to search for the meaning of words, Google will do
just fine.
So, integrity is
an ability to stand up for your principles.
Following the folk
wisdom “Nothing is Good or Bad but, by comparison” the clearest way to define
integrity is to compare it with conformity.
As we can see, integrity
– as the opposite to conformity – is a capacity to act against social/peer
pressure, not bending to common opinions, having your own criteria of your own
actions.
This quick linguistic
analysis demonstrates that integrity has
nothing to do with how you feel about
yourself; integrity has nothing
to do with how others feel about you.
Integrity
has nothing to do with feelings at all!
And integrity has
nothing to do with how you think about people or how people think about you.
Integrity is about your actions. Period.
Plus, term “treat”
has numerous meanings, so in this context is useless. Of course, here it means “treat
people in some nice way” (the opposite treatment would not be promoted, I
suppose). But many people confuse “nice” and “polite”, despite the fact that “polite” and “nice” are two
different treatments.
In real life,
being nice and being professional may contradict each other, and that is not a
very rare occasion.
If you want to be judged based on how nice you are -
you will lose your integrity really quickly.
So, before
adopting or liking a quote - maybe it's worth to spend some time to learn the
meaning of the terms in it?
Well, now we need
to answer a different question: why have so many people “liked” the meaningless
statement?
This is a perfect
example that demonstrates the immense Americans’ fascination with emotions and great
Americans’ distaste with reason/logic (not all of them, of course, but many of
those who have been born in America not very long time ago – by historic
measures).
The statement itself
may have no meaning.
But there is a hidden statement in it, that makes
people feel good about themselves.
The mind of a
reader reads the original statement, but immediately uncovers the hidden one
and the reader reacts – not to the actual statement – but to the hidden one (as
I say to my students, our mind constantly plays tricks on us, and we don’t even
notice them).
And that hidden
statement says: “It does not matter if
you are not educated, not talented, not rich, and not cool, as long as you treat people nicely (as
implied) you are a fine guy”.
This statement should
be on the banner of everyone who can’t have a professional conversation if
there is even a slightest hint of criticism in it.
I have published
in the past some posts on this matter, so I address everyone to them:
It was amazing to
me see recently another instance of this fascination with emotions; this time
it demonstrated how pathetically helpless people may be when emotionally
attacked. It was a video where a young aggressive lady was attacking Chelsea Clinton.
All Chelsea could
do was to mumble “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”.
Pathetic!
I sent her a tweet,
maybe it’ll help her to toughen-up a little.
Today I would also
add – Chelsea, have integrity!
I also have a post
on this matter:
“A Master is an expert professional.
There are ONLY two
rules for becoming
a Master
1. Learn from the Masters;
2. Never
stop pushing yourself.”
“Everyone is good
at something. No one is perfect. If you accept yourself as you are, opinions of
others will not matter to you anymore.”
“Life is a dynamic
adventure. No matter how good you are now, tomorrow you'll become less adequate.
Self-improvement comes from the difference between who you are now and who you
want to be tomorrow. This requires two abilities: an ability to reflect, and an
ability to project. Neither comes naturally from birth; each must be learned
and trained by an experienced coach.”
“Question always; question everything; question everyone”.
“Mistakes are inevitable and unavoidable. There is no shame in making a mistake. The shame is in insisting that you're right even when even you already know that you are not.”
Folk wisdom: “If you look in a mirror, and do not like what you see, do not blame the mirror.”
“Mistakes are inevitable and unavoidable. There is no shame in making a mistake. The shame is in insisting that you're right even when even you already know that you are not.”
Folk wisdom: “If you look in a mirror, and do not like what you see, do not blame the mirror.”
(BTW: a mirror is an object or a person interaction with
which activates the process of reflection on (a) personal appearance; (b)
external environment; or (c) internal psychological state).
“There are people worse than evil geniuses: aggressive ignorants and arrogant idiots. Only good public education can bring their number down to a socially tolerable value”.
And from Jordan B. Peterson “In order to be able to
think you have to risk being offensive” “There are people worse than evil geniuses: aggressive ignorants and arrogant idiots. Only good public education can bring their number down to a socially tolerable value”.
Circling back to the title of this piece: when people focus on emotions, on the feelings, on what other people would think of them, they have no strength and energy to do things that matter, to do the right things.
And they have no skills
to think, to analyze the facts, to examine behavior of people around them and
most importantly, to reflect on their own behavior.
Hence, they do not
participate in making things actually better, they do not participate in social
progress.
What they
participate in is making people and themselves feel better.
But making people
fell better will never solve any social or professional problems – at least on
its own.
In result – economic and social
problems compile, people are busy being deeply dug in their feelings, and
little by little things are getting worse and worse.
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