My Future is Bright, if You Don’t Destroy It First

I’ve spent the last week unable to escape my feelings of frustration. I get angrier as soon as I step outside of my apartment, with too many people either not covering their nose with their mask, only covering up just as they’re about to pass me, or not covering up at all. I’m an extremely healthy individual, but that only lasts until I’m not. There’s too many stories of sudden illness or cancers out there for me to feel comfortable in my health status. And, if that fate becomes mine, that’s going to send a direct hit into my ability to build wealth.

It would, in turn, destroy my hopes for a healthy, simple, and bright future. Those hopes don’t just impact me, either. My becoming rich will result in some kind of positive, obviously for myself but also on a slightly larger scale. At minimum, I’ll be opening a high-paying position for someone else to move up in the world. If I accomplish my current goals and dreams the benefit will extend even further, helping some number of future children, students, and folks in underprivileged areas. I can easily envision myself helping increase profits for specialty businesses, increase tax revenue for necessary budgets, and implementing cool programs people find valuable for decades to come.

All rosy posy. All shining bright.

And all in peril.

All three of the below issues are direct threats to my bright future, which my finances are supposed to fully support. In life there are, in fact, causes and consequences that can outweigh the impact of your money. And in such an interconnected world, it’s those that welcome destruction who can obliterate your nest egg’s might.

Plague Spreaders

This was an issue before coronavirus came and made everyone sick and tired of hearing about hygiene. One out of every three people don’t actually wash their hands after using the bathroom. Of those that do wash their hands, “wash” is somewhat of a flexible term; up to 70% of them skip using soap. Like… y’all know washing hands isn’t just because you just used a toilet, right? It’s to get rid of all the other germs you’ve accumulated since the last time your hands got sudsy. Your immune system will still have to fight them off if you come into contact with them, but at least hand-washing ensures you won’t pass something on to someone who will actually get sick.

I bring this up because I imagine it’s much easier to hide your dirty hands than it is to hide your lack of a mask. Or your lack of respect for personal space. I have the choice to eat vegetables over fast food on a regular basis, which is one of the lifestyle decisions I’ve made to keep a healthy heart and body in that bright future of mine. Coronavirus is threatening to put all of that work to waste.

Despite not having much data on its long-term effects, we’ve got enough uncomfortable data after several months of this contagion. It can cause heart disease, new-onset diabetes, and significant brain damage. With how shitty of a healthcare system America’s got, I have little confidence in my ability to build significant wealth while dealing with such potential health complications. So yes, your choosing to forego a face mask or have basic hygiene can directly inhibit my financial well-being… and yours, if you care at all.

Climate Blinders

Holy Christ, this sets me off in the worst kind of way. I’ve been hearing about global warming and the effects of harming our planet since the sixth grade. Fifteen years later and nothing more has been done?

I know for a fact the older adults have been hearing about this stuff a lot longer than I have, too. The book Silent Spring came out in the 60s. International Green Parties sprung up in the 70s. Al Gore’s been talking about this in earnest for at least the last forty years. Where are any of the major environmental protections the twelve-year-old me expected you guys to have in place by now? Why are you choosing short-term appeasement and lobbyists over keeping the place we live healthy and safe of toxins? All that money’s pouring into the military budget for our safety when it should be going towards combating the right enemy: climate change.

First-world countries worldwide are already struggling with refugees fleeing corruption and war. There are several millions more that will flood in when those areas become literally uninhabitable for human life. And that’s before those inhospitable conditions extend their reach.

This reminds me of an environmental sciences professor I had in college, who is one of the most passionate environmentalists I’ve ever met. He’s the one that first told me about the theory that ancient climate deterioration played a big role in the fall of the Roman Empire. Come to find out, he wasn’t wrong. And it causes quite the feeling of bright-future-foreboding when you notice there’s one too many parallels between today’s state of things and Rome’s before the end.

Budget Cutters

I don’t mean you cutting your personal budget. I mean bloated committee members and stakeholders who choose to underfund nonprofit work. These are far too few organizations set up to mitigate centuries-old systems of oppression. Systems that, by the way, directly inhibit the true progress of humanity as a whole. Do you really need someone to tell you that cutting funds to education leaves the masses less educated? Or that cutting funds to homeless shelters and aid programs leaves more homeless on the streets? There is no bright future when we abandon so many. If this is about some arrogance over belief the impoverished chose something like that, I hope you realize just how blessed you’ve been to have never intimately encountered mental instability. Or a society tipped against your favor. Or basic empathy? I guess?

Budget cutters have already exacerbated the impact of the aforementioned plague spreaders and climate blinders. It’s hard to inform the public, maintain health, or keep pollution out of towns when you don’t have the resources to do so.

At the end of the day, I don’t want to be worse off when that is perfectly preventable. Don’t make me grow sickly from spreading COVID or from breathing bad air. Don’t leave me to exposure, either, when there’s no reason to justify keeping me from shelter. Get better at resource allocation and put more resources towards supporting a just, healthy society. Corruption doesn’t offer nearly enough benefits to tempt anyone away from that.

So Yes. I am Angry and Afraid.

Don’t look at the title of this post and assume it’s coming from just my lips. That’s also from elementary-aged children who will be the first generation denied of a bountiful planet. So much less clean air. Much more trash everywhere they look. So much lower chance to reverse such change, and that’s optimistically assuming there’s any chance at all.

I owe it to my present self and my bright-future self, minimum, to strive for financial wealth. Wealth gives you that much more power than you otherwise would have had. More power means more ability to contribute to the causes you care most about. That could mean money, whether in the form of charity or in the form of buying innovation. But it can also mean a near-unlimited amount of your time and energy getting funneled into what you see as most urgent. If I keep putting in the time to accumulate wealth, I can embrace a rare opportunity to change the world for the better.

Which is assuming I can reach it at all. This year has been largely good to me while also testing my levels for patience; it’s really made me question my optimism about the years we have yet to live. I’m not sure I have a big enough platform to use this as a plea to do better, so instead I’d like to end this with a simple confirmation.

Yes, you matter in the health and wealth of the people around you. No, your actions are not meaningless. Yes, you have more choice and avenues available to you than you may currently realize. And no, you are not alone.

I hope you will do better. That’s how everyone can.

Cover image credit: Max Goncharov via Unsplash