Our Biggest Problem Today: Short-term Thinking
I think one of the things that keeps getting us (as human beings) into trouble is our reliance on only looking at the short-term. It's always been my saying that "Short-term gains for long-term pains" and I think that has been very well shown by recent events in our world. I think fixing that urge in us for plundering our resources for short-term gain for ourselves needs to be looked at and solved.
Now, obviously, we can't change other people's views or actions on this subject, but I think we can look at our own circumstances and see where we have this problem. For instance, I recently started looking at things that we buy for the sole purpose of throwing them away. One thing I saw was our over reliance on paper towels. We use them for napkins, cleaning up spills, drying off pans, and other stuff around the house. I looked at this and decided, even though some of these uses are still valid, I could be using towels or cloth napkins for a majority of my paper towel use. (Yes, it's a trivial example, but it's also my most recent example.) It seems to me that buying something thats sole purpose is to get thrown away is a great waste and ripe for reflection on whether to continue using it or not.
The following is a good video on how the financial sector is stuck in this thinking. I've heard plenty of stock traders talk recently about how they know that the stock market is crazy at the moment and not indicative of the actual economy. But if you get in and get out at the right time, you can make some nice money! They forget (or don't care) that most of that money they're "winning" is coming from regular people like you and me and ultimately hurting them because it actively kills the economy and they soon won't have much to trade with at all.
You can have short-term gains without long-term pain, but it requires you to weight all of your options and realize what all of the consequences might be to your actions.
Related posts:
- Your Company is the People You Serve As I've been working more on some of my projects...
- Prosper v. Kiva: Kiva Wins At around the same time last year, I put money...
- The Sensuality of Paper I've been thinking about why I like paper for some...
Tags: economy, short-termism
