If you don't know the saying, She'll be apples is an Australian idiom that means that everything is going to be alright - Australians tend to be positive like that and I notice this in myself when people ask if I need a hand to do some large task and I say, "Nah, it'll be fine" and then spend a lot of energy doing it alone.
I guess most people don't like asking for help, I don't really like accepting help either for at least a couple of reasons. One is that I don't like encroaching on the free time or energy of others. Secondly, I don't want to be indebted to others (even though I am happy to help them). Lastly, I like the satisfaction of completing tasks myself as it gives me a greater sense of ownership. Perhaps this is "old thinking" these days as it seems that a lot of the younger folk somewhat expect external help, as if it is a universal right - many also seem to expect it regardless of their own behavior toward others.
Now, I don't know if things will ever "be alright", but I do think that thinking and working as if they won't be will be unlikely to improve the situation. There is a difference between preparing for the worst and assuming nothing will change no matter what is done. The first means to be prepared effectively so that anything better than the worst will leave left over resources, the second means to believe that anything done is futile, meaning that nothing likely gets done.
"What are you doing?"
Nothing.
Doing nothing seems to be a strategy for many people and as I mentioned in a post recently, doing nothing might be an expression of instant gratification where the act is to avoid future uncertainty by not making any decision toward it, or taking any direction.
The future still arrives though, the difference is that instead of being an active participant with agency that influences the outcome in some way, an inactive player becomes a victim of the system. Victimhood tends to be coupled with bitterness, entitlement issues and even more inactivity - it becomes a slippery slope spiral downward and likely reinforces the feeling that the psychological position of negativity is justified.
"Do something"
Why bother?
I wonder where complacency fits into this and whether those who are negative feel that they do not have to do anything to improve a situation because negative circumstances support their attitude, meaning that they are "winning" - even though their life might suck balls. Many see positive people as naive, yet it is generally those who are positive who are also actively working toward their desired outcomes, which tend to lead to a better quality of life experience, even in failure.
"Try"
Why try if it will likely end in disappointment?
Because it is the journey that matters, not the outcome. Outcomes are symptoms of process, the results of the past activities and these outcomes will happen some way or another regardless of passivity or activity, but there can be a lot of variation in result. Doing nothing is a condition in the same way that doing something is - the difference is in the ability to influence other factors, or just let it all play out under the influence of whatever the conditions are. The problem is that a lot of people are active and will attempt to influence the results to benefit themselves.
Investment is much like this where most people are in non-playing roles for various reasons, but all are affected by the economic outcomes influenced by those who actively play and improve their process. It is easy to blame those who are successful at the game because they have manipulated the rules, but unless there is a change in player behaviors, the rules will keep changing to benefit those who control them. The system is rigged and the less people that play, the more rigged it becomes.
There is no compelling reason for those benefiting to change the rules of the game at a cost to themselves - it has to be through the non-players that start to take enough interest to invest themselves into a different outcome. Most avoid this because there is risk exposure involved in any kind of investment that looks to change something in the future, which means there is risk and potential for loss in every move made.
I am hoping that this is where cryptocurrencies will start to bring more people into the fray, as there is the potential for many people to start playing with relatively low to know investment capital. Not only that, it is an asset class that for now, most traditional investment mechanisms are not investing into due to risk or law, meaning that there is a small gap for non-investors to get their toe into a class where the current traditional investors don't have a foothold.
This means that if enough comes in, it becomes an investment vehicle outside of the "game" that most investors are playing and therefore, less open to their current set of rules. This makes it volatile, but also something that will stabilize as it formalizes as an industry and becomes an investment class that the traditional institutions will want to be a part of. However, they will be coming into a scene that potentially has many millions of players that they didn't have to compete with earlier and those people value the ownership and control of their assets - rather than relinquishing control to middlemen rent seekers.
At the end of the day, no one can really say what the outcomes of the crypto space will be and often people in crypto are considered naive, as they believe they can beat the system that has been around for 500+ years. But, the results are going to be the results and if people are actively working toward what they consider a better position, the results will be different than if they don't, because conditions have changed. It doesn't imply for better or worse, but changed is not the same and not many people are content with the current world in which we live - even if things are generally okay at the personal level.
Of course, rather than changing for the sake of change, we can direct our behavior in ways that will increase the likelihood of our preferences being met and one of the things with crypto for at least the moment, a rising tide lifts all boats. We often compete against each other instead of keeping ourselves on task of working toward a system that is far more beneficial for all of us. This is the old conditioning in play and it is hard to shake - especially if remaining passive.
We are the results of our process as well as what is outside of our control, but our process does play a part in the outcomes. Improving personal processes doesn't guarantee better results, but it does increase the odds. It is up to each of us as to whether we actively work toward we want to be or passively expect others to get us there.
Take a bite of the apple.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]