The Problem of Shortcuts

I was born at a very particular time that had me right in the transition of the technological boom. Raised in the 80s and high school in the 90s, it was just as the Internet was making its way to the public.

This puts me at a time when a new idea permeated our culture: the shortcut to everything.

Prior to this, like any young person, there was an idealistic view that things are going to work out great and the challenges elders tell you about won’t apply to you. You’re always the exception.

But that’s the joy of being young.

However, unlike the con artist artists of antiquity or the scam ads in newspapers and magazines, there was always an understanding of a road ahead. The rebellious nature of youth was to not travel that road, or find a different one that society expects.

The dawn of mass communication shifted the horizon. You could instantly download music, chat with dozens of people at once, and let me tell you, discovering Google and SparkNotes before teachers knew it existed—it was like sneaking a calculator into a mental math competition.

But something happened, culturally.

There was now an expectation that you could find a shortcut to anything. The idea of having to even travel on the road made little sense when there was a possibility of being transported to the end.

Why work hard for something when there was another way if you just knew what to search?

Social media amplified this problem to the stratosphere and I have to shake my head at the number of kids today who think they can get rich investing in crypto (especially when they only have a few hundred dollars to start), or they’re going to buy houses and apartment buildings to rent out (commercial mortgages for everyone!).

While I highlight these particular examples, there are endless more.

Unless one recognizes these for what they are, or accept it’ll take a lot more work than expected, it sets off years of dread as these people wake up in their mid 20s, or 30s… or 40s… and wonder why they aren’t further ahead. When expectation is out of line with reality, we have a cultural issue fuelled by anger, bitterness and dismay. The solution, of course, is to look for even more shortcuts.

This isn’t to take away from how much the world has changed and how difficult it is to meet those benchmarks people desire (e.g. owning a home). It’s simply getting people to ask:

Do I want a shortcut to nowhere or the long road to somewhere?