An Invitation to Read Them All!

As the latest poll shows 63% of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction, here is the 800^th in a series of messages that began in 2011. Most contain examples of failures in the five behavioral dimensions listed above. The purpose is not to “beat a dead horse,” but to show readers how to identify similar examples in their own lives and be able to classify them into the dimensions.

The title is Real American Solutions, because I believe that the future of America lies not in more government programs but in a nationwide effort to improve in these five key areas. 

Behavior has consequences, and consequences are predictable. Wise choices usually lead to happy outcomes; careless behavior leads to problems. As individuals make unwise choices in five key areas, trends develop across the entire society leading to unwanted outcomes.

These outcomes are expressed on the television and Internet news as the crises and epidemics of the day. But these societal problems don’t emerge from nowhere. They can, in very many cases, be traced back to individual choices. The government did not cause the obesity epidemic and retirement insecurity, for example, so why do we expect government to solve them? Critical thinking aligned with basic economic understanding can help people avoid many of the consumer fraud and deceptive/questionable advertising traps better than some distant, slow moving, bureaucratic protection agency. The same is true in so many other areas; wise behavior in the dimensions leads to individual happiness, which compounds into positive societal outcomes. 

So the many examples given are really practice exercises to spread the word that what we need is better choices and actions, not more ineffective programs. As more people become versed in the behavioral model, they will begin to question and challenge some of their own actions and those they observe. Well meaning politicians and advocates will not be able to get away with their faulty logic and top-down solutions, imposed through legal force or false guilt. (The ocean is not full of plastic because we use too many straws or drink too much soda!)

The hidden benefit is that behavior can be observed and described. It moves us out of the realm of blaming and assigning dastardly motives to everything we disagree with. A person’s motive or attitude is irrelevant as long as they do the right thing. If they do or say the wrong thing, it is easy to point that out without calling them evil, stupid or hateful. 

But being easy doesn’t mean it happens very often. These are habits to break.

Think of it as behavioral capitalism. Adam Smith wrote that if each person worked in his own best interest (economically), the outcome for the whole would improve. Likewise, if everyone makes a determined effort to be fitter and healthier, to have a more secure retirement, to get enough sleep, not to be lured in by ads for phony remedies or by empty promises about superficial happiness, and not to become stressed out by the constant litany of negative news coverage, the crises and epidemics go away.

There are 799 other entries and more to come – with a continued emphasis on behavior and not politics. I never seem to run out of material. Some from years ago pop up on the favorites list occasionally. The only difference between the early ones and the more recent ones are the examples. There should be something for everyone. So I encourage readers to “read ‘em all” (and let me know where I might have missed the point – my words are my behavior and open to critique; just don’t call me names!)