Why does adulting need to be so hard?
Are our wants and needs so extreme that we make our lives difficult?
A primary concept in capitalism is that each individual makes decisions to maximize their self-interest. Married couples and families may work towards a team’s self-interest and, in some cases, individual self-interest. Businesses have their self-interest for both the company and the employees.
A downside of capitalism is the competition created to fill one’s wants and needs, create stress, and make our lives difficult. This stress breeds mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, self-destructive behaviors, and world destructive acts.
We could eliminate capitalism and have controlled markets. However, that would not stop self-interests as black markets will fill needs and desires.
With competition, there is always somebody wanting to take over our position and market share. To stay ahead of the competition, we innovate, work harder and longer, leading to stress.
One of some’s self-interest is greed. The greed of capitalism has given us the innovations that make our lives easier. Easier? Adulting is hard and would be harder without some of the creations. We don’t have to clean our clothes with a washboard in a creek. We don’t have to walk across the plains from Illinois to Utah as my ancestors did. Now, we pay to run across rocky trails for fun in technical fabrics and fantastic shoes.
With all these innovations, we still find that achieving our self-interest leads to physical and mental stress. Only an individual can define their self-interest. But in our world of internet trolling, many want to criticize us for not reaching their definition of our self-interest.
Only we can make our own lives complicated. An outcome we have been able to achieve.
I started formulating this blog post on Tuesday, July 27, 2021. The day Simone Biles removed herself from the USA Gymnastics Olympic Team competition.
Her initial comments were, “I was not having any fun, and I need to take care of my mental health.”
Internet responses included, “she’s weak,” “she’s a quitter,” “she’s selfish,” “if a man did this, we would have…”, “she’s no longer the GOAT,” “she let us down.” Us? Did she ever want to be the GOAT, or is that something that sportscasters and commentators created to fill air time?
My initial thoughts were that she should have retired before the games and allowed the gymnast who finished next in the trials to enjoy the trip to Tokyo. Because with competition there is always somebody trying to take over our spot. And, adulting is hard.
Would she have received the same coverage if she had retired before the US trials or before heading to Tokyo? Probably not. We would never have seen a half-page in the Free Lance-Star with a banner headline addressing “Mental Health.” It would have been a small article of about 6 column inches on page 5.
As the week went on, the story changed to Ms. Biles losing her mental capability to do risky physical acrobatics. In the air, she could not tell the difference between up and down. She had lost the muscle memory that nobody else has ever had. The issue has moved from mental health to mental execution.
As with all X Game type sports, athletes that lose muscle memory and ignore the loss can have deadly consequences.
For Ms. Biles, the actual mental health issues are coming as she will need to cope with this loss of ability and how it impacts her self-image. I wish her good fortune in her journey. As adulting in today’s world is hard.
For those who need to declare a GOAT, she may be it until they need to declare the new GOAT.