“It’s a wonderful life…”
That was the title of a movie made way back in the 40s.
And it’s still true today.
Or at least it is for some people.
When I look around the world these days I see a combination of incredible and amazing on one end and at the other sad and scary.
Let’s start with the good, and there is a lot of it.
A quick look around anyone’s room should already amaze you.
The richest people alive just 100 years ago would be green with envy at all we have today.
To put things in perspective, the first calculator cost $2500 and it weighed in at 55 pounds (dang, that sucker was heavy) way back in 1958.
Today, a buck…if that…it not only fits in your pocket but weighs less than a few coins.
And if that wasn’t enough to impress you, it’s solar to boot.
What a difference 50 years make.
Not that you need more proof but just a mere 20 years ago information was a premium.
Books were still the go to form of knowledge.
No longer. The Internet made sure of that.
Today we do everything online, from recipe searches to global mapping to shopping for pretty much anything you could want, from anywhere you want it.
Nothing short of a miracle.
Don’t even get me started on the iPhone. What a phenomenal device!
And with the growth of technology has come the incredible advances in medicine; transplants, gene-splicing, LASIK eye surgery, stem cell research, and even the decoding of the human genome.
I’m not even sure what most of that stuff is…and have even less idea of how it works but all I know is that it’s impressive and has created breakthroughs on disease research and human aging, allowing people like you and I the possibility of a better, healthier, longer life.
And yet, why is it that despite all these incredible advances we aren’t all happier?
Today many people are:
- Overworked
- Under-appreciated
- Stressed out
- Tired
- Struggling to pay the bills
If that wasn’t bad enough I see a disturbing trend in the world today.
Hope is disappearing.
Japan is a good example of this when during the bubble, women wanted to marry men with the “three highs;” High education, high salary and height.
Today the highs have been replaced with the “three averages.” (I kid you not) Average income (stability over wealth), average appearance (handsome men are prone to affairs and divorce) and average calmness (less stress).
But it’s not just women that are changing in Japan.
Many men are seeing their dream of owning their own house vanish due to their salaries, especially when combined with the rising costs of education and raising a child.
I almost passed out when a client recently showed me the cost of sending a child to private college for 6 years pharmacology: $450,000.
That’s almost half a mil.
Wow.
Americans and Europeans are also feeling the pinch. Student debt, credit card debt, rising costs, lower salaries, and add to that more taxes in the very near future and it’s a recipe for disaster.
While I try to remain positive throughout my posts, I do feel that over the next three years change is coming.
Catwoman said it best in The Dark Knight Rises, when she said, “There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne.”
And it’s a storm that could very well shake our foundations to their core.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out my videos over at www.financialfutureseminar.com I encourage you to do so. The seminar is over but the information valuable.
But I’m not here to scare you…I wish I could offer you solutions but first and foremost the the single most important thing we must do in solving any problem is figuring out just what the problem is.
So here goes. I believe it is a combination of:
- Carefree attitude
- Government intervention in free markets
- Entitlement programs
- Debt
- Lack of personal responsibility
- Equality
Now I may have ruffled a few feathers with the last one (hopefully just that one) but it is a fact that we will never be equal. Our bodies, our brains, our talents, our health, our desires…the list goes on. I do believe in equal rights, 100% but we simply have to face the fact that we’re all different.
Trying to teach kids that everyone wins is among the dumbest ideas ever. It’s just not true and kids at the age of three (if not two) already understand there is a difference between winning and losing. Whether they care or not is something entirely different.
My son hates to lose. I didn’t teach him that, it’s just something inside of him. I guess you might say, “Like father, like son.”
Losing is an important lesson in life. It builds mental muscle. It helps toughen us up for the real challenges of life.
Businesses do go under. Marriages do fail. People do die.
That the way it is.
And despite how hard we try, we can’t change human nature.
So if that’s the problem, what can we do?
Good question. To me, I believe it starts at home.
Stop relying on schools to teach your children, we must be involved.
Stop looking for the government to solve your financial woes, look to yourself.
Stop waiting for things to happen, make them happen.
Stop pretending everything’s fine if it isn’t, do something about it.
I would love it if the world were a perfect place where our troubles really did melt like lemon drops but it’s just not that kind of place.
The world is what WE make of it.
As Gandhi once said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
I’m trying to be that change, I hope you will, too.
Adrian Shepherd