“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.” — Leo Tolstoy
I’ve been thinking about the nature of our current socioeconomic systems for a while now, and I think in many ways they’re kinda broken. Because, if they weren’t broken then why is shit so fucked up?
The systems need to meet people where they’re at. Which is apparently a sentence that as of today, 2024-07-30, has not been used according to Google.
Or my ability to search is questionable. And I’ll never say it’s not.
A similar sentence “the system needs to meet people where they’re at,” has a whopping 2 results as of today. One that is an article about how a couple that lost a son to a drug-overdose are helping people. And the other one is regarding health.
It is very curious to me that either of those two sentences haven’t been used.
I have to believe they have.
I know that tons of people have had discourse revolving around “meeting people where they’re at.”
If I just remove the quotes around those sentences, I get a lot more results that are all about meeting people where they’re at. But, it’s mostly career, coaching, and mental health stuff content. And there is a shitload of it.
It’s a topic I know is talked about a lot.
But if no one has used all those words together, then it makes me wonder.
I checked DuckDuckGo and Bing, and it’s the same thing. Neither the “systems need,” and the “system needs,” have usage. I know people think about this though. Why hasn’t this sentence been said though? 🤔
“Systems,” in the context of what I’m working through, is the ability to participate, and support yourself, within the systems that have been setup to theoretically support you. To theoretically enable you to pursue the “American Dream.” To theoretically enable you to have some sense of autonomy.
It seems that those systems are just fucked up. Those systems are not meeting people where they’re at. Those systems are discriminating against those that do not have the means, time, information, direction, nor support, to learn how to participate in them as a (small) business.
Imagine that you’re struggling to support yourself. That you have two jobs. That you have rent to pay, bills to pay, food to buy, and a family to care for.
Imagine never having the time to even consider starting something that will support you in having the kind of autonomy that has been promised to us throughout the generations.
As is very frequently said, “The rich get richer. And the poor get poorer.”
The poor get poorer through no fault of their own though. If you’re born into poverty, all you know is poverty, you’ve received little to no support, and you’ve had a hard time even keeping your head above water, then chances are it’ll be incredibly challenging to break that pattern and experience the kind of autonomy that makes you feel like you’re in control of your life.
If no one has taught you the management and life skills required to succeed in our current market systems, then the chances of failing within our markets - the chance that someone who has the courage to start something up fails - are exponentially higher.
I don’t think a lot of small business owners realize just how many systems they must be aware of, and skills that they must accumulate, to succeed for the long term.
I read somewhere that 40% of the United States consider themselves entrepreneurial and dream of starting their own business. Starting the process of gaining some semblance of autonomy. Starting the process of providing value to others while pursuing their craft - their passions.
And 90% of startups will fail.
Ninety-fucking percent. That’s a big What The Fuck to me. If there is a 90% chance that within 5 years a business will fail then something is screwed up. If there was a 90% failure rate of some sort of product, then it would very likely be recalled. Imagine if there was a 5-year 90% failure rate for your phone. How happy would you be?
So, 57% of people want to start a business, and 90% of the small percent of the 57% that have the courage to start something, will fail. This, to me, means whatever support system is meant to support that individuals autonomy is incredibly broken.
What’s very interesting to me is that when I chat with small business owners in various services industries, they do not want to actually run their business. They may own a business, but they don’t want to run it. They just want to do what they enjoy doing - helping people.
They’ve said it’s just a pain in the ass.
Since this is the feedback I keep hearing, I can’t help but to think something is incredibly broken.
And I can’t help but to wonder the reasons that more people aren’t working on introducing support systems that better support the working poor. Many of whom will be displaced because of AI.
We sure do live in some sort of fucking society.
I don’t get it.