Complacency

[JD@af]

I've touched on this subject in a bunch of threads in this forum before, but I've decided to write a piece about it with it as the sole focus of a thread to describe my stance.

I watched this railroad safety training video recently. Statistically, the longer you work on a railroad, the greater your chances of being hit by a train are, since the more exposure you have to trains, simply by sheer numbers, the greater your chances for mishap. But, additionally, through time your caution becomes lax by nature. So to my surprise, those portrayed to at the greatest risk of being hit by trains on the job were not the new guys, but the veterans, the 10, 15, 20 year veteran employees who have been working on the tracks long enough to begin to get careless.

This brings us to the topic of my discussion: complacency. Americans in particular adopt too many policies of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and “out of sight, out of mind.” Think about the parents who work hard everyday at their jobs, every day, to support their children, and then go home and tell them about how they want a better life for their kids. Well, that is commendable, but I feel they are standing on the dock waving their ship good-bye when it’s really not that hard to get on board themselves. The parent may work very hard, granted, but are they challenging themselves? That’s the key here. I’d say easily 99 out of 100 times, NO, the parent is not challenging him or herself. It’s like the old saying: work smarter, not harder. Working hard, because it can often become a practice of habit, is not what I call a challenge. Working in new ways, changing your occupation or routine and learning different trades, that is challenge.

Think about the person who wants to be rich. Well, seems step one to being rich is getting a job, and step two is saving up money, right? I used to agree with this school of thought, however, I have veered sharply from this mentality in the last couple years. The reason: this is a path of complacency. I look at people who work at the same company for most of their adult lives, perhaps only on a mediocre path for advancement. It will be extraordinarily difficult for someone in this situation to acquire wealth. I feel that the way to do it is not to work for “the man,” but to go into business for yourself. Working for a large firm, it gets too easy to get sucked into the system. You work, you get your two weeks a year, and through time you settle down, you get married, you raise a family, all the way getting a bone thrown at you once or twice a year in the form of a 3 to 5 percent raise. Is this supposed to be living? You are walking the beaten path to nowhere special. You never stray from the path of mediocrity. More importantly, you are never forced to step out of your comfort zone.

Most people coast through life (once they have finished school) never having to do anything that makes them uncomfortable. I know I’ve rambled about this before, but I’ll do it again to beat my point a little more: where would early humanity have gotten if they (these are our ancestors now) had decided to be lazy and not carry out the battle to survive by hunting and gathering food? They would have gone extinct. And this struggle was fought every day. Look at us now: we work eight hours, then come home, and chug a few beers sitting on our asses with a bag of Doritoes in one hand and the TV remote in the other. Seems at some point we realize we are not the supreme beings we once thought we were, so we instill our desire to better ourselves in our kids, and try to “inspire” them to grow up to be better people and make more of themselves.

My friend and I noticed this. We were hanging out during our senior year of college, working hard on thesis, and partying like rock stars whenever we could find the time between thesis chapter due dates and career counselor meetings, because hey, college is where all the fun is, and its all downhill from there: the real world awaits. Well, we finally did graduate, and a couple months afterwards we got on the phone, and remarked at how easy real world life is once you’ve got a job, a car, and a place to live. We found that being a working stiff is a cakewalk compared to what we were subjected to in college. School is where the challenge is (at least relative to most career paths)

I think about the poor immigrant who comes to America with nothing but the promise of the American dream. They may have nothing to work with, but chances are, just getting onto these soils with a visa was a struggle in and of itself. This person will do much better for themselves than their equivalent native American in a similar situation. I must tread cautiously, I am not making a statement here to trash the work ethic of the average American, or say that there are not Americans in poverty, etc. My point is that I am inspired by people like this, people like Andrew Carnegie who came to America broke, and his projected with today's inflation, he may still be the wealthiest person in history.

To sum up, most of us are victims of complacency. Stop and think about how often you do something that makes you really uncomfortable, or something that scares you. If you can say even once a week, you are not in sparse company. Because I have seen too many people that go unchallenged for years. This is why I think complacency is among the worst of all human qualities. It ties into wealth, it ties into matters of life and death, it seems interlaced with our very existence. We somehow gravitate towards being sloths, and it is very sad. Because imagine if you could accomplish and overcome something that scares you, or do something that makes you uncomfortable, and survive it everyday? You’d feel like a million bucks, and that’s pretty much what you’d be worth. I believe that people driven enough to never stop challenging themselves will never settle for failure, will never give up, and have no other option than to succeed in whatever they do.

Thanks for reading-

-JD

[Lizard King]

From my English perspective, I've always seen Americans as being the most 'get up and go' of all nations. Its one of those little stereotypes of an American with get 'rich quick books'. Many Americans work as motivational speakers in England.
Indeed, American citizens have the biggest chance of going from rags to riches.

I could never lead the regular life with a 9-5 job. It really scares me when I see people who've worked the same job all their adult lives. It scares me into doing what I really want to do. Theres nothing sadder to me than unfulfilled dreams.

[enzo@af]

I agree with you. Lately I've been thinking about how awful it's going to be once I graduate college and I have to work for money, rather than work for education. If I had the resources to stay in school forever, I think I might.

However, some people enjoy the 9-5. Some people enjoy a strict schedule because it provides "a little security in an insecure world" (hey, after all this is an automotive message board). Some people prefer the norm. Granted, they most likely ever be remembered in the same light as someone like MLK jr or Carnegie, but that's okay to them.

I guess what I'm getting at is survive, be happy, and drive fast.

[Heep]

I think the 9-5 leads to the bucks, but only if you're with it. If you din't think about your job and do everything by habit, the same things everyday, you'll never get anywhere. But if you're constantly thinking about what you're doing, why you're doing it, and how you can make it easier and better, then you will succeed.

Also, if you get an idea, try it out. Drew Hoffman got tired of opening his girlfriends door, so he rigged up a simple solenoid that he operated by remote. He turned this idea into multi million dollar enterprise Autoloc, whic I'm sure many of you know as one of the premier companies in that area. Don't be afriad to try stuff. I still say I'm gonna get rich over my flavored envelopes and stamps and heated toilet seats.

[Porsche]

LOL, heated toliet seats, I'd buy that! My invention or idea would be an automatic toliet scrubber, self cleaning dashboard and an electric hammer, like on the Simpsons, it's actually a good idea. And JD, I couldn't agree more with what I could Decipher. I'm a student right now, soon to be off to University and then what after that? Home to a wife and three kids? I really want to be different and not have a work schedule but, work from 9 till I when i feel I'm done (I want to engineer cars) and I want to live life to it's fulest and go skydiving and BASE jumping, mountain climbing and scuba diving. I want a routine but not one I'm going to be in till I'm off to a home. I also feel you're right about being challenged, I'd want to feel challenged at my job instead of doing something too easy and boring. What would you rather do, flip burgers or or design a guidance computer for the shuttle?

[Heep]

Hey, maybe you can help...

Verboom and I are going to design a car this summer, maybe build a clay model. If you could engineer some parts (mostly chassis and suspension), we would be on our way towards our goal of building it.

[JD@af]

Uhhh, who is your post directed at?

[Heep]

Porsche.

He said he wanted to engineer cars.

[JD@af]

For those interested, I've finally edited my original post. I think you'll find it to be a lot more palatable (and decipherable ) now that its undergone a few revisions.

So please check out my first post in this thread. Thank you.

[DVSNCYNIKL]

I just have one thing to add to what was originally said. That which you speak of, is in itself, one's desire. Many people have led fruitfull lives working 9-5 and have done what others have only dreamed of. When that fire inside of you burns out, that leads to what you categorize as Complacency. Too often people nowadays want to take the easy way out, make a quick buck, and then relax because they've made the amount of finance they desired. What ends up happening is that they then become lazy and become shocked when it's all gone.

It is those people that have grown up with nothing, that value everything they achieve because they know what it was like before. When you start out with everything given, you take things for granted and never really appreciate it because you didn't have to do anything for it. But I bet, if you had to struggle to get that next check, your motivation would be a lot different.

Speaking as someone who's had to struggle all my life to get something, I have the desire in me. And while the opportunities have been seldom, the ones that do come by, get taken advantage of real quick. I'm not one to sit and dabble about, Oh I want this, Oh I want that. I'm one to say, What do I need in order to get that?

Thanks for the insight.

[matt]

JD - That's so true, but you don't hardly even realize it until you read something like what you wrote. Kudos.