In recent decades, a mentality that is as common as it is dangerous has been generated in our society: presentism. Most people want everything now, no one wants to wait.
Years ago, if you wanted a new car, you had to work for a while, save some money and then buy it. The same was true for the home or the holidays. In essence, the company then sent a very clear message: "If you work hard, it may be that one day you will be able to get what you want."
But suddenly everything changed, the message became another: “Why wait? At this precise moment you can have everything you want! " And so today it is possible to get things before having conquered them by working, thanks to loans, mortgages and debts, not only can we have a house or a car even if we cannot afford them, but we can also take a vacation in an exotic country or have the latest model of TV or mobile phone.
The idea that you can have everything you want right away, before you have worked hard to get it, has generated the belief that there is a shortcut to everything, a quick way to get what you want, with as little effort as possible. This mentality has entered almost all areas of life, when we complain because we have to work too much and do not immediately see the results or when we abandon therapy because it was not as fast as we hoped.
Unfortunately, I have bad news for the victims of presentism: the idea of ​​getting everything you want right here and now, effortlessly, is just an illusion. The truth is that there are no easy shortcuts, almost all spheres of life are difficult to deal with and this is why, when
we have reached the top, we can see what we have achieved in perspective and feel satisfied.
Indeed, how many times have you looked with envy at a famous sportsman, entrepreneur, scientist or artist and thought they were very lucky? In fact, behind success (which is the only thing we see) usually hides many years of hard work, sacrifice, perseverance and even a lot of suffering.
No athlete, entrepreneur, scientist or artist has achieved worldwide recognition just because he was lucky. Of course, it's always important to be in the right place at the right time, but hard work and skills are the real foundation of success.
To illustrate this idea comes a quote from Michael Jordan, who you may already know as he is very famous in the personal growth circles: “I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost nearly 300 games. 26 times they trusted me to make that shot that could solve the match and I failed. I have failed over and over again in my life, that's why I have been successful “. This shows that there is a long way to success, often full of mistakes, disappointments and doubts.
A generation of adult children
Presentism and the idea of ​​everything and immediately, with it, have created a generation of adult children, people who want everything without doing anything. The truth is that the things we fight for, those goals we want to achieve, often require hard sacrifices, we cannot work twelve hours a day, six days a week and participate in the growth of our children, we have to decide for one thing or another. other or, where possible, adopt a middle ground, which is always the healthiest choice.
However, the worst side of presentism lies not in having the wrong idea of ​​the world and how it works, but in the fact that it enslaves us to our decisions, slaves with no escape. When you have signed a debt, you can no longer change your destiny in the short term, you are tied hand and foot to a precise process, trapped by choices made in the past. On the contrary, if we work to achieve a goal, we can also change our plans at any time, the path depends only on us.
Furthermore, as absurd as it may seem, thinking that there is a shortcut to everything leads to stagnation, paralysis, because people concentrate all their strength and energy in searching for the shortcut that does not exist, when in reality they could have used those resources to work hard in order to carry out a project with the potential to be successful in the long term.
By this I mean that there are no magic formulas, that if we have a problem, there are no wizards or fairies that with a stroke of a magic wand can give us brilliant and quick solutions, it is we who must try to solve the problem by striving patiently. There are no easy shortcuts to happiness.
