The age of instant gratification
In the past couple of days, yet again, I have come across another
set of examples of the age we live in: the age of instant gratification, the
age of the me, the here, the now, no matter the price we, collectively, have to
pay for it.
Whether it’s personal, organization or national choices, we
have gone from societies where the majority had to sacrifice themselves to the
benefit of a few (feudal and religious societies) to the age where we think we
are personally benefiting from instant gratification, when actually, we are
avoiding to stop, think and digest the choices we are making in the medium and
long term, and ironically benefit the wrong people once again, and therefore
are not better off.
You have to make a choice. You have to make a compromise. You
simply have to invest. Lots of haves indeed, but you can only reap what you
sow.
Let me explain.
The conversation started with how we improve service to a
client. How do we maintain quality of personalised service whilst pushing for
economies of scale and financial benefits for larger organizations. Well, guess
what, 4 days later of intense workshops with senior people, no one wants to
address the elephant in the room: you cannot realise aggressive, short term
financial benefits whilst maintaining that personalised quality service you had
before, based on human interaction, knowledge and empathy. No machine or
automation can give you that personal understanding and care you once had. Value
for money makes little sense, you either want quality and pay the price of it,
whether a product, a service or even a person in your life, or you want cheap,
and cheap you get at all levels.
You have to make a choice. You have to make a compromise. You
simply have to invest. Lots of haves and musts, but you can only reap what you
sow.
We then moved the conversation to Brexit. Once again,
Europe, Brussels, the others got the blame for what is an inside problem. You
can not blame others for the problems you created in the first place. A country
that decided that education, infrastructure and basic common services were not
a priority as they did not provide a (personal) financial instant gratification,
a country that got rid of most industries that added any good or value to
society, and focused on an economy solely based on financial services, making
money for the sake of it, creating debt rather than value, cannot simply expect
this to be beneficial to the whole of society.
And whilst the EU has a lot to be criticised for, as over
the decades it became an engine to benefit large corporations and financial
institutions, and then started blaming the people for its failures, one has to
look at the choices made internally by governments, strongly supported by
lobbies of media and interest groups, over the years and decades and understand
that a society that blames its own people for its own failures, a society that
fails to invest in the health and education of its own children and the well
being of the 99% for the sake of the 1%, a society where monetary value is the
ultimate value and purpose, is a failing, decadent society.
Once again, you have to make a choice. You have to make a
compromise. You simply have to invest. Lots of haves indeed, but you can only
reap what you sow.
And then you look at the western societies we have become.
It’s all about the me and the now. Literally the opposite of the Buddhist (yes focus
on the instant moment but think on how your thoughts/feelings/actions will
benefit others) or African Ubuntu (I am because you are) philosophies, where an
individual only exists as part of a wider circle being it in a couple or a
larger group of friends, family, colleagues, or citizens. After so many decades
of sacrificing ourselves for others, mainly due to religious and derived
patriarchal societies, we have become so focused on our own personal instant
indulgences of the moment, that we no longer realise or care to realise, that
our daily choices, being as voters, consumers or professionals, may have an
impact on others, and ultimately on ourselves. The concept of delaying,
nurturing, building for the greater good, for others and ultimately for
ourselves has gone with the wind.
Once again, you have to make a choice. You have to make a
compromise. You simply have to invest. Lots of haves indeed, but you can only
reap what you sow.
And then we wonder why our lives have become so shallow, so
empty of sense, so meaningless. We have this need to get but not give. We have
this need for our children to achieve, our partners to satisfy us here and now,
our friends to fulfil us in the present moment, but we do not want to put in
what we see as sacrifices, efforts and ultimately choices we need to make… and
we end up failing to notice the depth of those connections, and the impact in our
own future, and, ironically, our present.
When are we going to wake up to the fact that making
efforts, building bridges, compromising and thinking of others will ultimately
actually bring personal satisfaction as we will build couples, families,
communities that care about each other and the common good? When will we go
back to basics and realise that more is less, that simple is good, that what we
reap is what we sow, that what we put in is what we will get out, even if it
means waiting a bit longer than the here and the now? When will we realise we
have so much to gain from being connected to others and ensuring they are growing
and being nurtured, as we are because they are?
You have to make a choice. You have to make a compromise. You
simply have to invest. Lots of haves indeed, but you can only reap what you
sow.
