I have on one of my book shelves a children book that I have had since being about 4 or 5 years old. This is a book, like a Dr. Seuss book, which has pictures and a small story line—at the time I imagine the pictures were the selling point for me. I bought the book, but I bought it with “my money” or what I thought was enough money. I was old enough to know about money but not old enough to not know that money wasn’t an all-encompassing denomination, I think in my mind if you have money no matter how much, you can get whatever you wanted—1 penny was as good as 10 dollars it didn’t matter. Money is money and its all the same- that was my perspective.
Back in the day there were no malls like there were some years later, it was just the stores which ran along main street. Then malls sprang up and even strip malls in neighborhoods. Now malls are seemingly going away and Amazon.com is king. I imagine in time there will be a next big thing whatever that is. This was Boise, Idaho in the early 70’s. Things might be thought differently back then including my own perspectives—so as I get older, I wonder if maybe things aren’t as different as they really were thought to be—but maybe it’s our perspective that is the different factor. People as I have found are really not that different and probably haven’t been that much different for ages- situations change and the methods and modes change but not the human. As a 90’s song goes, …people are people…, so why should it be… that you and I should get along so differently.
Kids still fight over a cardboard box and over a nice expensive toy- they don’t care, for the most part they are oblivious to value as we understand it as adults. If the other one has something and the one wants it, then they get into an argument. How they play together is not taught, nobody signs up for the class in childhood selfishness… it’s kind of instinctual. They can be mean little cusses, but that’s alright too, there wasn’t a time when they were “not supposed to be selfless” in their lives. The time from infancy to toddler is all a function of only being out for themselves, they don’t look out for anyone else, they aren’t supposed to. I think it is just called age-appropriate behavior.
Therefore, good behavior and well-disciplined kids are a function of training– Certain behaviors can be explained by age and the perspective that we have at that time. Dave Ramsey said in a phone call I heard once, “children do what they want, adults prepare, plan and execute”. We move from what we want only to what we should do, and then moving forward to preparing for the future—hopefully…, all these things are under education and training.
Babies cry to be feed, toddlers whine when they don’t get their way, children pout when something gets in the way of what is expected… and then teenagers are… just teenagers. As kids, they push back on doing things for themselves, they learn to walk, not because someone schedules time to do it, but they push through it by instinct… maybe to move faster than what they did, maybe to explore and see things faster, maybe trying to copy what everyone else is doing… walking. Who knows exactly, but it seems as if there is some motivation to start to take care of ourselves and push back to not have things done for us, then the further we push to be more independent; we start to choose our paths in training and pursuing a certain level of actualization.
The method of buying and selling goods and services has changed, but not in a tremendously different way than what it has been like for 1000’s of years. It was main street, then the mall, now to Amazon… but the trading is still the same at it has been for a very long time—the market, the method perspective is different, someone makes something, in hopes of selling it for a profit—then a bunch of somebodies buy that thing, it could be a regular commodity like food, but ingenious humans have a way to create want where there is none before. Think about it, 50 years ago was there a market, consumer desire to buy Apple Watches or I-Phones…, they hadn’t been invented yet… our understanding of Apple products was limited to applesauce, apple juice or apples themselves—markets hadn’t been invented, because the product hadn’t been invented. Markets are not like some finite pie that there is only so much to go around, markets are created and then go away all the time—markets are also driven by emotions.
We have a level of understanding when a 3-year whines to not eat his veggies, but we wonder what is wrong when a 25-year-old whines when putting up a fuss to no eat his veggies—they should know better, right, they have more experience and should have level of better understanding, better educated, not driven by emotion. What about an adult who is able to work but seeks out welfare—is it an emotional issue, is that a training issue, is that a laziness issue, a resource issue, an imagination issue, a lack of grit issue, accountability issue, an uncountable number of numbered issues—can it be boiled down to an issue or group of issues, I’m sure its complex, and a certain level of perspective too- right.
One thing that I’m seeing more and more, due to my perspective is that of self-interest… there is not much that we do that is not first centered around self-interest, if you are familiar with John Locke, Adam Smith and some of our early American based philosophies which have early founding of the right of property, choice, independence, they all have underpinnings in that of self-interest– which is different from selfishness. We can still help someone else out to fulfill some self-interest and it can be not selfish —which in turn drives our market economies, choices in what we choose to do, where we choose to live, what our profession is—nobody tells us that “you should be a plumber” or that there is only room for “this” many plumbers, that is entirely market driven and that is the ironic thing, how is the market driven. It just is… not one entity tells or is in control of it, it’s a culmination of it all. It really is an amazing thing to see the market forces at work.
Now to the bookstore in downtown Boise Idaho back in the early 70’s. I walked in with my mom to the bookstore and found me a book that caught my eye- undoubtedly, however I don’t remember what I was thinking, it was a long time ago. The name of the book was called, “The Zoo That Grew”, just a children’s book, but I undoubtedly thought that I would like it and deemed it to be my book—I wanted, right. I had a penny in my pocket, it was money and I walked up to the cashier, gave her my money and thought to myself, you have a book, I have money, it was a fair trade. I had money and I had given her all that I had and thought that was the close of a good deal. That was my perspective, hers was a bit different of course. She knew that the book cost a bit more than what I had overall and didn’t want me to walk out without paying what the market demanded. It costs this much and if you are willing to pay that then it is yours, that was her perspective- my perspective was wrong in the real world. Therefore, because she had more relevant information and was more experienced in money aspects, was an adult, then her perspective won out in the market world that we were dealing in. Therefore, not all perspectives are correct. How can they be… even though there are factions of people who may say otherwise.
My mom undoubtedly paid the balance of the cost of the book and I had my book—but I did not know that at the time, as I said, I had my penny, she had her book and I thought it was a fair trade. Perspective is many things but it’s not always right, not all perspectives can be right. That day the market force was in play, someone traded some denomination of money for some goods and service- we met on the market and nobody told us where it was, or what it was, it just was. My perspective has been fashioned a bit over time, alignment to a certain degree, push back in other ways. Choice to do what I want but not at the expense of others…. All of these things are part of training and education.