The proliferation of preventable problems

When you refuse to think, feel, and do your best, you open yourself to manifold problems that you have the ability to prevent. An unfortunate number of problems faced by people today both individually and societally are completely preventable, but persist only because those suffering from them refuse to acknowledge and solve them.

Many problems are easy to identify and solve if you are honest, but very few people are honest. Persistent problems tend to be those that require acknowledging truths we would rather not face.

It’s difficult to accurately identify problems and potential solutions in a world lacking radical truthfulness and transparency. In our modern world, you don’t have to look far to find examples of blatant lies about the causes of common problems:

• Homelessness. The homeless reliably prefer their situation to alternatives, and will only prefer something other than homelessness when the cost of being homeless increases relative to it.
• Under- and unemployment. Nearly all people are employable, just not at the wages they feel entitled to.
• Suicide. Those who kill themselves are not “victims of suicide.” The victims are those they selfishly leave behind.
• Obesity. Obesity is not a disease, but simply the choice to overeat.
• Mental health. So-called mental health problems are not caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, but negative thought patterns and behaviors—things that can be changed by choice. The challenges of life are increased—not reduced—by drugs that reduce one’s perception of them.
• Poverty. Poverty is caused by poor life choices, not lack of resources or opportunity. The perpetually poor neglect opportunities to improve themselves and their surroundings, spending their money on things of low worth and low future value.¹ They do not invest in the future. They prioritize the present.
• Racism. Racism is a practice, not an outcome, and cannot be solved by practicing more of it. Any program that boosts or reduces the merit of a person based on their skin color is racist, no matter its intended outcomes.
• Youth degradation. Children need full-time parents, the ability to play outside, education without Marxist indoctrination, and freedom from pornography, social media, and junk food. Almost all modern problems present in the youth are absent from children raised in environments approaching normal home life prior to 2008.

Similar blatant lies exist in the specific context of the lives of families and individuals, where problems like religious beliefs, finding a spouse, having children, maintaining a marriage, raising children, obtaining and succeeding in a career, and so on all follow the same pattern of obvious solutions requiring the acknowledgment of difficult truth.

Few people possess the honesty to identify and solve today’s problems, no matter how simple they may be. Instead, they either blame other causes or people, or insist that the solution is something other than whatever it is they would rather not change. An added benefit of inflating the problem is that the larger the solution, the less guilty anyone feels in failing to solve it.