Truth Dealer

The Internet is awash with the power of pragmatism.

Every one of life’s ills can apparently be solved in a 5 point bulleted blog post. I should know. I’ve probably written some of them.  Self-help is popular. Who wouldn’t be attracted by an article called “6 Simple Ways to Overcome Every One of Life’s Problems and Get Rich While Doing Nothing At All*”

*A fictional article.

Self-made self-help celebrities abound. Is it just me, or do most of them seem to be young, white, American, and mostly male? Positive thinking is powerful. People have transformed their lives. They’ve “got more done”, made some money, and then written a book informing adoring followers how easy it is.

I admire these people. Their energy, optimism and dedication is inspiring – and positivity is something we absolutely need more of in this world we have made for ourselves.

In the West we have something called choice. We also have the freedom to exercise that choice. It’s something we take for granted almost every day. Nobel Prizewinner Amartya Sen realised this in his book Development as Freedom. People in developing countries live with ‘unfreedoms’ – they lack the opportunities to live as they wish. Perhaps they need to read ‘The Secret” (note: tongue-placed-firmly-in-cheek).

Our positive pragmatism seems to skim the surface of reality. It’s attractive and seems practical – so much that practitioners seem to build a semi-cult following. In our countries of opportunity we have the scope to apply such principles – and live our “best life” (whatever that is) – yet in many cultures, many circumstances – opportunity is rare.

Here are some realities:

• In among achieving financial success and personal happiness your child can contract terminal cancer.
• After building your best life now, your wife leaves you.
• You’ve networked with hundreds of people, with connections to hundreds more. You Facebook, Twitter, and will be an early adopter of the next-best-thing. But. You. Still. Feel. Lonely.
• You lost 20lbs in 30 days or even gained 20lbs of raw muscle on 6 weeks, and then had an accident and lost the use of one leg. To add insult to injury you will get old, frail, and wrinkly. And one day sooner or later – you’ll die.

Too morbid? Too negative? No wonder we prefer 6 Ways to Better Sex.

Unfortunately we’re living in delusion.

Take your eyes off of the self-made self-help hero and you’ll notice that he is surrounded by 10,000 others who tried to be like him – but never made it. The answer they’ll keep getting: Try Harder.

Maybe life is too messy to be solved in 10 bullet-points. Maybe the world is too big and to complex to assume that everyone else is a young white American. 921,159,399 people in Africa don’t even access the Internet. Could it be that our positive pragmatism is solely based on the microcosm that is the WorldofMe™ – and maybe it doesn’t bear scrutiny when extrapolated out across the tide of humanity…

While consuming your next item of positive pragmatism – ask yourself this question: Am I investing my happiness in something I can lose?