Unintended Consequences & Parenting In A Toxic Achievement Culture
Article Round-Up: 8.20.23
Enjoy this week’s curated round-up of articles, podcasts, and more from the web to help you live a healthier, happier life.
For Curiosity’s Sake:
Featured Thoughts: Unintended Consequences
Takeaway: Imagine a genie appears and grants you a wish. You ask to be rich, with the idea that money will solve many of your problems today. The genie agrees, but there is a catch. You have to be rich AND famous, not just rich. Do you take the deal?
This article takes a look at young professional athletes who make millions at a young age only to go broke before their mid-life crisis. As it turns out, the cause may not be lavish spending on themselves. Instead, it appears lavish spending on “others” is what becomes their downfall.
When you’re rich and famous, everyone you’ve ever met wants a piece of the pie. The challenge is that most people wrongly believe in order to be rich you have to be famous. In today’s world, this simply isn’t true. (You also likely need far less money than you think to achieve peak happiness.)
This idea shares many qualities of something called a Prryhic Victory: a win in battle that results in so many casualties it might as well have been a defeat. (Named after 3rd Century Greek King, Prryhus, who experienced such a devastating win during a military campaign against the Romans.)
Becoming famous in the pursuit of getting rich may be winning the battle but losing the war.
Don’t underestimate the power of privacy.
The overarching theme I identify here is that of predicting unintended consequences before they arise.
These are called second-order consequences. They are the consequences of the consequences of your actions.
If you become rich and famous, the first-order consequences are that you have money and everyone knows who you are. Doesn’t sound so bad. You sound important. Valuable. Take that a step further, what are the consequences of everyone in the world knowing who you are AND know you have lots of money?
This is all in the context of fame and fortune. Consider how applying second-order consequences can give you the advantage and predictive power in other areas of your life.
You ask out the boy/girl and they reject you. First-order consequences say you’ll be embarrassed and feel crummy. Go a step further and you realize you get over it and are less afraid to ask out the next person you find interesting. (Increasing your chances of getting a date and meeting your future life partner.)
You’ve had a long day so you skip the gym. First-order says you’ll get extra time on the couch to relax. Second-order consequences mean you’re building a new habit of skipping the gym, and one skipped workout turns into five years of falling off the wagon.
You have a craving for junk food. First-order says you’ll enjoy a nice meal that tastes great. Second-order suggests that meal leaves you feeling lethargic, bloated, and terrible. Now you’ve ruined the rest of your day for a momentary pleasure.
Here’s another popular example of second-order consequences and unintended outcomes:
A daycare was having the problem of parents running late to pick up their kids. The staff was tired of being trapped at work late for picking up their children, and needed a deterrent so parents would be more punctual.
Their solution was to begin charging a fee for picking up your child after-hours. Their first-order conclusion was that parents would be on time to avoid paying late fees.
What actually happened was not what they intended.
The daycare soon found that their problem had gotten worse. Parents were still running late but doing it more often. Why did this happen?
Let’s consider the second-order consequences. First-order consequences meant when you were late, you paid a late fee. The consequences of paying a late fee meant that parents felt justified in making the daycare staff stick around longer, because they were now being compensated for their time. The late fee acted as a justification for being late instead of a deterrent.
When you fail to consider the consequences further down the road, sometimes you’ll. be surprised with unintended consequences you didn’t expect nor want.
Becoming famous in order to get rich doesn’t sound so bad, until you lose your privacy and your peace. That’s a won battle but lost war.
Know what you’re actually trying to achieve and what you want to avoid.
Published This Week:
“The 5 Biggest Mistakes New Dieters Make That Slow Weight Loss”
Takeaway: Avoid these five common mistakes made by new dieters to see easier weight loss. These errors include crash dieting, skipping meals, neglecting physical activity, excessive focus on the scale, and setting unrealistic weight loss goals. For maximum success, aim for a gradual process with patience, emphasizing balanced eating, regular exercise, and setting manageable goals for sustainable results.
“How To Parent In Our Toxic Achievement Culture”
Takeaway: In this Q&A with Jennifer Wallace, author of the book “Never Enough,” discuss how parents can approach raising children in the current climate of hyper-achievement and competition. One such topic was on the idea that affluence, resources, and competition actually make it harder for children to grow into a healthy, happy adulthood. Here’s what Wallace had to say:
“There are lots of reasons but one that I really dive into in the book is how our values relate to our well-being. When you put a child in a hyper-competitive environment, you organize their life around what researchers call materialistic goals. Those are not just about brand names and logos, but about a way of orienting your life, career success, getting the next trophy, making the next level, all of these things. We over-emphasize materialistic goals and under-emphasize things like caring for your neighbors. being a good person, being empathic, taking time to develop deep friendships. But those intrinsic values protect mental health, whereas materialistic values are related and linked with mental health disturbances.”
If you’re a parent this article (and the book) sound like they’d be a great resource for you. And if you’re an individual who may have been brought up in such an environment, this might also be a good resource to begin learning how to do things differently.
Just For Fun:
If you’ve ever known a mid-western dad, watch this.