Most of us come into the world with a complete set of equipment on board, which only needs time and nurturing to fully develop. By age 1, most of us are walking, by age two, we’re talking, by age 5-7, we’re reading, we matriculate through the educational system, advancing each year to a new grade, by age 16 we get a driver’s license, by 18 more than half of us graduate high school, and at age 21 we’re declared “adults” with all the independent rights, privileges, amenities, immunities and entitlements thereunto appertaining. Wow!
But what happens “NEXT” is a sobering “New Reality”.
·
Some “lucky” ones make it, but more than a few
“unlucky” ones don’t.
·
A significant number of ostensibly “privileged”
find themselves woefully unstrung.
·
And a significant number of “underprivileged”
rise to the top despite overwhelming odds and challenges.
What is it about “NEXT” that’s different and why such a
colossal divergence/dichotomy – all-of-a-sudden, never-so-much-too-soon?
Clues about “NEXT” are found in looking at what’s happening –
and what’s already happened – above and below the waterline of survival and
behind the front stage scenery. Much of
the divergence/dichotomy centers around intrinsic
disparities: Disparities in expectations, assumptions and presumed entitlements;
disparities in understanding what got us to age 21; and disparities in
understanding what life is going to require of us the rest of the way to our ultimate
Destiny. [NOTE: This discourse does not
seek to diminish the fact that there are very real extrinsic disparities, such
as in wealth, privilege and opportunity.
However, the focus here is on disparities in vision over which the
individual has some presumptive control.
We first need to eliminate those
disparities, divergences and dichotomies and “GET WITH THE PROGRAM”.]
More graphically, what’s happening above and below the
waterline of survival looks like this (see figure below):
In the beginning … 100 percent of our wellbeing is provided
by significant others – mainly our parents and immediate family. Financial estimates for 2013 suggest that it
requires approximately $250,000 to raise a child from birth to age 18 = roughly
$14,000 per year. That’s not counting the
sweat equity of nurturing or intellectual capital contributions. Add in the societal cost for libraries,
schools, roads, city and state parks, police, fire and emergency responders, community
programs, etc., and it comes close to $350,000 – just short of $20,000 per
year.
But that’s about as far as the train goes, boomerang
homesteading notwithstanding. This is
not a sustainable world order paradigm! Society’s contribution is an investment,
not a hand-out, and it expects that investment to pay dividends. It is a term-limited proposition that
eventually runs out.
With time, we are expected to put in increasing amounts of our
own sweat equity, do more of our own nurturing and invest our own intellectual
capital – to the full extent we are able, not just to the extent we are
“willing” – eventually reaching and then going beyond the point of independent
survival (approximately 10,000 hours, according to Malcolm Gladwell), and ultimately
contributing toward the success of the greater social order and next generation. A “New
Reality”-based transformation to productive, self-disciplined self-coaching is required.
To do less – e.g., with willful defiance in the pursuit of
pleasure and diversion while artfully side-stepping responsibility with profuse
excuses and explanations … salted and peppered with indignant claims of
injustice – is to endanger our Dreams, Destiny, sanity and overall wellbeing
while engendering frustration, stress, anger, bewilderment, hopelessness, bitterness
and regret.
So mere, sheer survival is not alone the goal … albeit,
betimes, as much as we can muster. Mastering ourselves and our circumstances
to a point of thriving, with navigability in deep water, is the goal. There we find the importance and value of a
completely different social contract involving much higher denomination
investments. Whereas we start out as
“consumers”, we need to transform to “producers”, then to “sellers”, for which
we need willing “buyers”. Our job
is to bend the line of societal investment forward toward our own Destiny –
making ourselves “investable” … worthy of gold bond investing by highly
significant others. This we do by being, creating and offering
someone/something of intrinsic, authentic worth. Worth-y-ness is where True Destiny
begins. Your fulfillment IS worth
it. Make it so. Quartermaster
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