The Rich Will Always Get Richer

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 A paradox that Eckhart Tolle revealed to me is that the world we live in in is simultaneously getting worse and better at the same time. It is getting better in so many ways, but the ways it is getting worse are much more likely to be paid attention to because our biology is fine tuned to pay attention to negative emotions. I invite you to turn on the nightly news and observe your own reactions to the news. Once one news story is presented, pause the program, and just close your eyes for a moment. Are you having thoughts like "That is outrageous!" or "There is so much violence on our streets!" or perhaps "What a Jerk. I cannot believe that he was ever elected." Due to the financial incentives to mine your attention to the advertisements between news reports, the nightly news will do whatever it can to grab and hold your attention. It has an intrinsic negative bias because that is what makes money. Social media is just a much more optimized and targeted expression of this bias. If you add up the revenue from News and social media, you will understand the monetary value of your attention. What you pay attention to, you get more of...and here is where the positive aspects of the world need to be recognized.

Even as I write this, I can feel your opposition to the idea that the world is getting better in any way. You will need to fight your own negative bias in order to give an honest assessment of this fact. Let's just take access to information. Never before have so many people of so all socio-economic statuses globally had access to so much actionable, useful information. Can you convince yourself of that? I will offer a bit more help - Let's say that a young woman in rural Thailand wants to learn how to program a computer. The dizzying array of free resources to learn virtually any programming language simply by doing a google search and using google translate should be an indication of how powerful this can be for improving her life. She has a richness of curiosity, and that curiosity has a virtually unlimited supply of information available to consume and process. She will get richer in skills, understanding, education, financial opportunities (especially with more and more remote work opportunities) and this access to information and skills acquisition gives her hope for a brighter future.

So by "rich" I really just mean abundant. It can be financial, but does not need to be. Whatever level of richness you are at right now in curiosity, desire to learn, desire to grow, drive to help others, financial income, health...you have more opportunities to become richer than ever before, regardless of your race, culture, gender, socio-economic status. 

However...if you are enslaved by your negative reactions, and consume news reports and social media targeted at your negative opinions, you will get poorer. You will have more confirmation that your negative outlook of the world is accurate, and you will become more and more entrenched in a static mindset (See Carol Dweck's book "Mindset") - You will become poorer. You will become less curious. Less optimistic about the future, more stressed and yes, less financially healthy as well. "What's the point of going for that promotion. I am just going to get racially profiled and denied anyway." - In that mindset, there is more opportunity than ever before to become poorer.

My advice is to be curious about yourself. Run an experiment like a scientist would. Define some metrics of "richness" in your life, not just financial, and measure them now. Then, take a 30 day fast from all social media and news, and define one thing that you are genuinely in your soul curious about, and go on youtube and learn everything you can about it. In 30 days, I am confident your richness of curiosity will make your life richer in the ways that matter most to you.


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