"Most people don't recognize the depths of their failure until long after they've been in there." - Futurist Jim Carroll"
So the question on most people's minds is - when will all of this end?
Go on, admit it. If you are like most people who follow me and read these daily posts, you get up every morning and check the news to see if a certain event has transpired.
So far, no.
And you check again the next day.
And the next.
So where are we now?
What's the path out?
No one knows. But I do know it will take quite some time. I've long learned through observation that most people don't understand they're on the wrong path until it's far too late. CEOs always believe they are invincible until the wreckage of their company surrounds them - Jim Balsillie of Blackberry fame comes to mind, and as of late, Elon Musk. Star athletes keep on trying and trying, failing ever more frequently as their body begins to fail them, never quite accepting the reality of their condition. Alcoholics and addicts always face a tortuous path to acceptance of their condition. Entire nations become convinced they can follow a path of destroying their economy to "improve" it.
Anyways, here we are. What's interesting to think about is how this unfolds from here.
What we are dealing with is what we might call "delayed failure recognition." What's that? It's a cold, hard truth that there is often some seriously twisted wiring in the human brains of folks around us, with the impact that they are often blind to their demise. Simply put, the typical logic of failure acceptance is non-existent.
Let's break down the psychological landmines that is "delayed failure recognition:"
The Dunning-Kruger Effect: The "They Don't Know What They Don't Know" Trap
This is ground zero. They think they're on the right path. They've convinced themselves they've got it figured out. Why? Lack of knowledge, conspiracy theories, crowd thinking. They've become so utterly incompetent in a specific area that they don't even possess the knowledge to recognize their incompetence. Let's just say it's a feedback loop of blissful ignorance. They're sailing along, charting a course for success when in reality, they're heading straight for the jagged rocks. Their brain is actively preventing them from seeing the warning signs because they don't know what to look for.
Self-Serving Bias & Ego Protection: The Blame Game, Elevated
Their ego is an armed fortress of grievance, and it's ready to explode at any moment. That means that when the winds of failure start to blow, their first instinct isn't to confront it - it's to shield themselves from acknowledging it. Instead, they try to rationalize what is happening, believing it's a game of 4-dimensional chess. They blame others. They do anything to avoid confronting the chilling reality they face -- because this would crush the years of belief they have built up in their minds that they are on the right path. Psychiatrists speak of a sophisticated psychological defense mechanism that ensures a healthy lag between the moment failure occurs and the moment they even consider owning it - which is, sadly, a long, long time.
Normalcy Bias: The "It's Always Been This Way" Delusion
People crave stability. They cling to the familiar. So when things start to subtly degrade, they rationalize to themselves that "it's just a phase." "Things will pick up." "It will get better soon." They become so accustomed to the slow unraveling around them that they ignore the increasingly obvious cracks of instability. Only when the whole damn building collapses do they finally look around and say, "Huh, guess that wasn't normal after all."
Change Blindness & Gradual Decline: The Boiling Frog Syndrome
Remember the boiling frog story? That's the one that has a frog in a pot of slowly heating water - and it doesn't jump out because the change is so incremental, so imperceptible. That's them. Right now, frogs are boiling.
The Depths of Delayed Awareness
So right now, we are living through one of the most extreme cases of "delayed failure recognition:".
Sadly and tragically, we are all impacted.
And we don't know how and when it ends, but we all suspect it won't end well.
Plan accordingly.
Futurist Jim Carroll checked the news first thing this morning, just as most other people do.