We live in some of the most prosperous times in the history of mankind, yet fear still dominates our perspective from day to day. It appears that we have perhaps developed an unhealthy relationship with the unknown and have begun to cling to mediocrity rather than risk it for the chance of achieving a better and less fearful living. Life is easier than ever. Success depending on how one defines it is easier than ever. But maybe life is so easy that success is harder than ever to define. I would rather succeed, but it is better to fail than to tread water forever.
If the past two months have taught me anything, it is that modern society suffers from an intense avoidance of failure. From your first standardized test in school, kids are taught not to fail. Failure is treated as a vice and success as a virtue. But when the expectation is succeed while avoiding failure, there is little virtue to reaching the bar that was set for you before you were born.
I graduated from high school and I honestly didn't think it was really that great of a moment and one so worthy of fanfare. It was like a birthday. Some reward for somehow managing not to die in a world with less threats than ever before. I felt the same way about college, expect I was happy that I no longer had to play that game anymore. The one where you binge information the night before exams just to throw it up the next day. Expectations were met and the low bar was cleared. My grades in school were stellar, but I never felt that I had really accomplished something. It seemed more that I traveled on the road that I was expected to travel on and had avoided failure at all costs.
Society has a recommended path and it looks like the following. Go to school and learn to follow the rules and check the boxes at the arbitrary tasks that we put in front of you. It doesn't matter if you understand what you are doing, it only matters that you do the right thing when prompted. What does such instruction produce? Obedient employees. Employees who have been taught the following major principle: Do your job. Don't take risks. Avoid failure.
While having obedient employees that have thousands of dollars of student loans and credit card debt seems like a good thing for perspective employers in that there is less incentive for those employers to really have to compete to retain their workers, it actually isn't. In the long term, the risk averse tread water and eventually get out-competed by those that innovate. And those that innovate, innovate because they take risks, which come with dramatic downsides (which we tend to overestimate) but also can come with significant upsides.
But why care about this now? There is a solution to the risk averse. The innovators, although there are a few, still will manage to progress forward and solve problems through their innovation. The mediocre lose in the long run. Well, that's only true with you have a significant enough population of innovators willing to lead and willing to drag the rest of us along for the ride, but what happens when those obedient little followers start being put in positions of power? They defer risk forward. They delay critical decisions. They won't bet on innovators due to the risk. They are too afraid to fail, so they will tread water and hope for the best. This attitude is everywhere. Hope for the best.
If you rotate the debts and print enough money, you'll be okay for just a little bit longer. Avoid the failure now and we can all deal with these problems in the future. But those problems magnify. I was a very timid person growing up. I followed instructions and that was it. I didn't chase after anything. I didn't go out of my way to try something new or to innovate. It's almost like I expected success to be handed to me. I was unemployed for nine months and then underpaid for nine more. It was only when I started to take risks that I started to understand how much opportunity was really out there. I thought putting $200 into Bitcoin was a risk back in early 2017. But how that risk has paid off. But those risks only came about because of my failure to follow the traditional employment path. Being jobless for nine months was the greatest opportunity of my entire life. But some people view that state as undesirable. As a risk.
Today, in the United States, I live in a country run by people who are failing to fail. Rather than live with the results of their mistakes, they double down on them. Rather than concede being wrong, they claim their righteousness. They point to the future and say things will be better, but they sacrifice the opportunity of the future so they can tread water today.
Things aren't bad they claim. Companies with mediocre strategies and products are bailed out. They can't fail. CEOS won't learn from their mistakes. This way is better. Funds with massive exploding debts are given more loans with support from the Fed. They can't fail. Money managers won't learn from their mistakes. This way is better. Stocks that are massively overvalued are soon to be indirectly supported by the government. They can't fail. Investors won't learn from their mistakes. This way is better. What about the people that have lost their jobs? Why don't we just pay them to live and complete the picture? We probably won't and those people might learn something. Though under the weight of all these mediocre institutions and people who can actually afford the failure it seems just a little bit unfair.
Who is going to save us in the long run? The innovators. But innovators struggle in a rigged game. What reason is there to play? What incentive is there to innovate when their competition does nothing of value and continues to get ahead? Something has to fail. Because if it doesn't now, it will just be worse in the future. Because despite the pain, in the long run, things will get better. People learn from their mistakes. We adapt. That's our great strength. So why are we betting on our greatest weakness?