After reading “The Third Wave” by Alvin Toffler and learning how so many factors that we take for granted in our lives were developed specifically to cope with changes in technology and the subsequent means of production, I became more and more interested in how people fared before the advent of civilization. Since the systems that once supported industrialized economies so well no longer prove adequate for the changes that new technologies have unleashed upon us I wondered how to cope with this.

A key factor of industrialized economies was the ‘massification’ of everything: mass-media, mass-transport, mass-education, for example. The trends are now going in the opposite direction into enormous diversification. The internet has diminished the influence of the old mass-media newspapers and television stations. More and more people are educating their children at home. The trends indicate that more and more self-sufficiency will occur. More and more people will become what Toffler terms ‘prosumers,’ people who produce products as well as consume products (such as bloggers, software writers, musicians). This becomes increasingly easy in a world where the inflationary adjusted cost of many goods continues to decrease. Self-sufficiency and the freedom from the need to depend upon external systems has become the driving force for more and more individuals.

The problem for most people is that we have now arrived at a point in developed economies where individuals have become far removed from the ability to fend for themselves alone. We are largely educated and trained to integrate into complex systems full of dependencies. In some respects this gives an individual less and less control and less and less certainty over providing for personal needs and desires. This runs counter to our natural instincts for self-control and self-sufficiency. We will trade a certain amount of freedom and control in exchange for lower risk and more certainty. However, as the trade in freedom and control increases our stress and despondency levels increase.

Unfortunately, what seems to be happening more and more is that the search for security and certainty from the old ways of doing things is becoming more elusive and so the competition is getting greater. Ever more time becomes required to outperform the other competitors in the system and to get a better share of available resources and opportunities. People tend to study for longer and longer seeking the competitive edge that will lead to the guaranteed good life. I would say that the point of imbalance, where effort expended gives diminishing returns has occurred, perhaps some years ago, however, the way we raise people to fit into the system means that the majority know of no other option and hence feel no choice but to go along with things. This happens because we don’t prepare people for self-sufficiency. Instead we prepare them for dependency.

As Aristotle said, thousands of years ago, “There is only one security in life and that is the development of our skills.” This is as true today as it was back then, twenty-four centuries ago. The one skill that reigns supreme above all others is that of problem-solving (making possible what we desire). Our entire lives can be viewed as a series of problems lived and solved moment-to-moment. Those who have good problem solving methods excel and those who do not fare badly. Anyone can learn this skill and once learnt it can be applied to everything in life. This skill becomes the fountain of all resourcefulness, confidence and whatever level of certainty we can ever hope to achieve. In my opinion, this one fundamental skill should form the foundation of all schooling and all training. Instead of spoon-feeding knowledge without understanding, we should instead instruct in problem-solving and how to develop the personal resources necessary to solve a given problem. With that kind of foundation an individual becomes robustly independent, resourceful and much better equipped to deal with whatever comes along.

The next article will feature some of the major parts of problem-solving that each of us needs to know.

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[Photo by mushanga]