One thing I’ve noticed recently is the culture of me. Individualism has taken a nasty turn whereby people now feel that they are at the centre of the universe. Hence, rules created for the benefit of society as a whole no longer seem apply to them. They are special. Equal access, equal opportunity and equal outcome for everyone – regardless of perseverance or talent.
This has been going on for a while but it seems to have become more pronounced in recent years. Worse still is the flip side, where people refuse to tale responsibility for their own stupidity. This is individual power without any kind of individual responsibility. For example, if we trip up over an uneven pavement we look for blame everywhere except where it belongs. We get in touch with as seen on TV lawyers that work on a no won no fee basis to extract as much payment from the pavement as possible via the local council. Anything, in fact, apart from actually looking where we are going in the first place.
Or how about those individuals that are more than happy to take the spoils of capitalism when the financial markets are moving in the right direction but expect society to socialise their losses when it’s not. Not that it’s all their fault. Far from it. Bankers are the scape goats du jour but what about the idiots that borrowed the money? That’s you and me folks.
An idea that appears connected to all this is the thought that we all deserve a big slice of the pie – even if we do absolutely nothing to justify it. Everyone desires a prize. Lazy kids demand A-grades even when they haven’t done the work. Narcissistic teens demand fame even if they have next to no talent. Egotistical politicians upset if they don’t win leadership contests and self-indulgent CEOs get payouts even if their share price has collapsed.
Time to turn things around. Let’s have a commonsense revolution. Let’s get kids doing things that are really difficult once in a while. Let’s make people do things that are potentially painful mentally and physically. Let’s re-introduce school sports days where individuals come second, third and last. Let’s build up mental and physical resilience so that when something really nasty does happen we are prepared. Above all let’s link payouts to performance but recognize that luck pays a part. And when we fail, which we all do, let’s quietly accept it and not try to attribute blame to someone else.
Life, it seems to me, is ultimately about knowing how to deal with disappointment, because for most people that’s exactly what happens in the end.