Humans Have a Major Head-In-Sand Problem

As we all well know, ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away. Indeed, quite the opposite, it allows the problems to persist and grow until such fateful day where the problems manifest themselves in our lives with no recourse but to face the consequences of our inaction.

Reality has a way of catching up to you —President Barack Obama

Nonetheless, it is human nature to focus on today’s needs and reality and put off the inconvenient things for another day. How will we pay our bills? What’s for dinner? What’s the price of gasoline? Today’s warm weather in January seems pleasant. Etc. Very few of us like to contemplate worst case scenarios or what will happen in 10 or 20 years if we continue down the same road. We use all sorts of psychological tricks to support our myopic views including:

• Procrastination—we’ll deal with it tomorrow
• Delusion—it doesn’t exist
• Blind Optimism—it will improve
• Can-do attitude—no problem can’t be solved
• Conspiracy—it’s all big setup by nefarious powers
• Religion—God will protect us or it’s God’s will
• Nihilism—it doesn’t matter
• Resignation—there’s nothing I can do to change it
• Localism—it’s…