This is a tale of a frog in a beaker of slow-boiling water ....
There was once a frog which found itself in a beaker of water. Being in a beaker, the frog was not free to jump about as it naturally would. But the beaker was spacious enough, with enough homely attractions, to keep it happy.
Then, someone unknown to the frog, for reasons also unknown to the frog, put a slow burning fire underneath the beaker, and subjected the water to a slow boil.
The frog has a natural gift. It has the physiological ability to adjust to ever higher temperatures. This is the gift that enable the frog to live through all seasons.
The temperature of the water in the beaker kept going up, but gradually. If the temperature had spiked up, the frog might have jumped out. But that was not the case. So, the frog unknowingly used its natural gift to cope with ever higher temperatures.
It kept adjusting to the higher temperatures. The frog never felt uncomfortable enough at any point to get out.
Eventually, the water reach boiling point. Then, what happened to the frog? It died. Suddenly, or so it seems.
Consider, the point of this story. What does this have to do with the human existence?
In my previous vocation as an economist and investment analyst, I figured out from my almost 20 years of studying companies and business trends that there is one rule of survival that applies to practically all companies today.
Whatever it is that the company is doing, be it manufacturing, services, or marketing, it has got to do what it does better, faster, smarter, constantly, but charge less.
The company has to keep investing to expand and upgrade capabilities and equip its workers with more skills, and new skills.
Despite the cost pressures, and because of the highly competitive global marketplace, the company cannot charge more.
Instead, whatever it is that it is doing better, faster, smarter, it has to keep pricing its goods or services lower.
It'd want to keep costs down, but often all it can do is to contain the inexorable upward pressures on costs. Then, once in a while, something has to give. Normally, the workforce. By way of massive retrenchments, by the tens of thousands for big global companies.
What do you think is the impact of this divergence of capabilities and costs and pricing power on humanity? What is the human cost?
Is it a wonder people get really stressed up and uptight nowadays? Is it a wonder cancer, a stress-induced disease (whatever they say about smoking), has become commonplace and a commonly-feared health risk for every other person, or more? Is it a wonder why the age-related diseases of the past no longer respects our youth?
Has it ever occured to you that diseases originate from dis-ease? Often mistaken as stress in the face of higher level of performance.
Is our comfort zone really that comfortable, or are we just like a frog in a beaker of slow-boiling water, adjusting to ever higher levels of discomforts?
Shall we not get out before the water hit boiling point?
I know of a land where we can hop about healthily, freely, happily ..
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