Short-termism

Do you jab at the elevator button? You are not alone. Every day, instead of taking stairs to my office on the 2nd floor, I take the elevator to observe how people jab at the already-lit elevator button. To me, this is the sign that our species have reached our limit for human productivity.

Busy with our immediate goals, we are completely oblivious how miserably we are stuck inside a short-termism trap. Instead of democracy, we exported this short-termism to the rest of the world. We start a war for the same reasons that we want to end it immediately. In EU, we enticed a budding market into bankruptcy with exporting our financial benchmarks! In the Middle East, to satisfy our own voters, our elected presidents, choose short-term turmoil over long-term solution to a nearly-one-century-old problem. Even corporate America is not immune. Many companies train their salespeople to deceive potential customers and lure them into long-term contracts. These are all manifestation of a society that sacrifices a long-term goal for a short-term gain.

Reza Sabernia