Tom: We’re raised and conditioned to view life as a logical sequence, but reality isn't linear.
Careers, relationships, and maturity don't follow a script.
This expectation of constant progress only breeds suffering.
Young people think a single choice defines the next 50 years, and adults feel like failures just because they don't know where they're headed.
Our minds try to turn chaos into a narrative just to comfort us, but real life doesn't have a screenwriter.
Sometimes, an unexpected setback is just a problem, there's no profound lesson behind it.
Realizing this is liberating: changing course isn't a failure, and being confused doesn't mean everything has gone wrong.
William: Look at the case of poverty.
I don’t get why everyone thinks they were born to be rich!
If you aren't highly successful by 30... people blame it on the diabolical engineering of some system that's blocking the "natural course of things", as if the natural course meant that even if you're born poor, you're supposed to get rich by 30, or 40 at the latest. 😉
I disagree with Tom when he suggests we are conditioned to see life as a logical sequence.
I wish that were the case.
One of the things children are told the most is that they can be whatever they want to be.
And I don’t just blame adults for what comes next.
From an early age, I noticed that one person's limitations or potential can be vastly different from another's.
Some classmates learned easily, while others really struggled.
Some had well-structured, caring homes, while others lived in troubled households.
What I mean is that a child, regardless of their environment, has their own grasp on reality, or lack thereof.
Daydreaming too much can't just be blamed on some "conditioning" Tom thinks is happening, which honestly downplays our own ability to perceive things.
My own perception, independent of my parents' "conditioning," is this:
Poverty is humanity's natural state.
Just look at how indigenous peoples or our ancestors lived, scarce resources, simple lives, no accumulation of wealth.
When kings and courts emerged, wealth remained the exception; the majority stayed poor.
Capitalism brought advancements and expanded the middle class, but wealth is still a reality for only a few.
Anyone who says poverty is merely a social construct ignores reality.
From the moment of birth, we already know the social conditions a child will be brought into.
Parents, when deciding to have children, are well aware of the economic situation awaiting them.
If everyone has only the bare necessities, it doesn't mean they are rich; it means they live within the natural limitation of resources.
