You yawn, and we yawn. You laugh. then we do the same. “Human is a social animal”, every good book which tries to tell you the story of humanity, starts with these words. We borrow the qualities as well as the flaws, from those who interact or co-exist with us.
It is partly magical and highly intuitive. You can go as far as saying, “We exist to learn throughout our lifespan.” I mean, you have been blessed with the ability to imagine. How many other species do you believe to embrace it like we already have?
Light
Dark
We are simply wired to imitate the traits of our companions.
It is essentially one of the strengths of all homo-sapiens by virtue of which, we can enhance our learning, wisdom, resilience and the overall growth as a person. Though that’s a remarkable skill, which we all possess; a few of us truly bring it to another level.
Such is the fate of some of our friends!
Reasons? Family issues or the financial woes, personal choices or the other circumstantial constraints… prevent the reach of higher education. Reality is always grey anyway; so simply securing some college degree doesn’t translate into a better life itself. Nevertheless, less education is better than no education, and if you are not going to be trapped in some insane credit repayments curse, then by all means, invest in the advanced levels of academia.
But irrespective of the differences in educational accomplishments, all of the humans in your life have the same degree of influence on you. At least I strongly believe, because the baseline cannot be grounded in the contact hours. In simpler terms, some people would spend a lot of time with you, but still, they might not affect your own tendencies by that much.
On the other hand, some individuals might be with you for a really insignificant length of time, and yet they would permanently impact your worldview.
That statement may be an obvious observation or an oblivious objection to the ideas of ‘time-based learning’, but it is what it is. Think about it this way; the ever-growing members of the freelancer community, are not necessarily using all of the aspects of their educational qualification, which were learnt (or supposedly ‘taught’) at the school. Instead, they employ the in-demand skills, which might have required some Time and Capital Investment, in a much lesser amount and with a quicker realisation of the desired outcomes.
So the amount of time invested in ‘being taught’ something which is prescribed by the non-professional human beings, and the intensity of efforts committed to ‘learning’ something which is actually needed by the industries, out of your own curiosity, affinity and volition (free-will), are two different things.
Unfortunately, just the side of Enthusiasm or Dedication for a skill or a profession is not so engaging.
You can guess how easy it is to get comfortable with the unhealthy or the financially failed people. No, we are not against those who fail for the right reasons, and in a pre-calculated manner; if anything, the world needs more of those. The individuals or the groups,, which we would be better off avoiding all the time, are specific cases of ‘never learning from the past mistakes.’ They represent a reluctance to work, that is Sloth, and unlike the pure laziness, they would stay active at least for the sake of the external appearances, but all of their projects would exist to attract the money, and then fail without any backup provisions.
Yes, you need to stay alert about those individuals. They would try to recruit you into the various mathematically absurd schemes, networks or memberships, just to get some commission out of it. It is clearly not like Affiliate Marketing, because in Affiliate Marketing, the product stays unchanged as per the market rates, and even if that Affiliate Product is not sold well, you have not much to loose. But the ‘keep failing the same, learn never’ individuals, would get you in trouble, which would often involve some form of the Interest Rates or the unpaid dues.
Bank Loans and Credit Cards can be kept under the control, and you can predict the final billed amount, and you can even monitor your capacity to clear your debt by understanding your current gross income, cash inflows outflows and your disposable income after all the taxes and the repayments. It is just the mathematics of the Compound Interest formula, and your knowledge about the market behaviours as well as the economy (since the Interest Rates keep changing).
You can wait to get Credit or Debt, and sometimes you could wait before repaying the loan in full. Policies keep changing to respond to the market forces, and the economic cycles.
But the risks involved in some Less Transparent work model, are impossible to predict.
Can you actually understand how the financial investment and the potential earnings would offset each other, and can you personally calculate the most likely Profit Margins? If not, then congratulations, you have found out whom to avoid at any cost. Beware of Sloth of others, it’s probably more infectious than any Enthusiasm because Sloth encourages the no-efforts fast-success daydreams, which are so well-packaged, that it is almost indistinguishable from a genuine business model or a proper work ethic.
At the end of the day, it is your responsibility to your own wonderful self, to defend yourself from the sweet-talking agents of Sloth, and let yourself rejoice the knowledge of the authentic people, who share something actually useful and understandable, in such a transparent and calculatable manner, that even you could imitate them, but with a lot of hard-work and strategic smart-work.
“If something is too easy to do, it is bound to be a trap disguised as some financial freedom gateway.”