12 Jul How Bad Is It?
How Bad Is It?
July 12, 2019
“Things are always the same. They’re always getting worse.”
That’s a quote from an old movie nobody remembers.
But have you ever felt this way?
Do you feel that way right now?
Even with technology and advances of all kinds, things can seem hopeless.
Here’s some research from the pre-eminent scholar on this subject. He’s known as the top expert in State-Of-The-World research.
He’s given these questions to thousands of people all over the world from all walks of life.
Question 1: In all low-income countries across the world today, how many girls finish primary school?
A: 20 percent
B: 40 percent
C: 60 percent
Question 2: In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has…
A: Almost doubled
B: Remained more or less the same
C: Almost halved
Question 3: How did the number of deaths per year from natural disasters change over the last hundred years?
A: More than doubled
B: Remained about the same
C: Decreased to less than half
All done?
Here are the answers: 1: C, 2: C, 3: C
How did you do?
Did you get all of them wrong like me?
No worries. If you did poorly, you’re in good company. Here’s what the author of this test said:
“Over the past decades I have posed hundreds of fact questions like these, about poverty and wealth, population growth, births, deaths, education, health, gender, violence, energy, and the environment to thousands of people across the world. These tests are not complicated and there are no trick questions. I am careful to only use facts that are well documented and not disputed. Yet most people do extremely badly…Some of the most appalling results came from a group of Nobel laureates and medical researchers.
It is not a question of intelligence. Everyone seems to get the world devastatingly wrong.”
Remember, the answers to these questions are not up for debate. The facts are “well documented and not disputed.”
Things aren’t getting worse. In fact, things in the world have gotten better. A LOT better.
So why do we think things are so bad? Maybe it’s because the news only highlights the 1% of bad things happening. Maybe we’re all too pessimistic by nature.
Whatever the reason, this research allows us to make a big change in our lives.
If our filter skews toward negative, we will subconsciously seek out and surround ourselves with negative (just like we start to notice all the red cars after we buy a red car). If we things things are bleak, we’ll pay attention to the bleak–and start to feel hopeless.
But if our filter skews toward positive, we’ll notice and be surrounded by positive. We’ll be motivated. We’ll want to contribute to the positive momentum.
The facts in this book show us that we need to fill our filters up with accurate information.
According to undisputed facts, the world isn’t getting worse. Things aren’t hopeless. They’re actually getting better all the time.
And knowing that can be a life-changer.
My book is called The Inevitability of Becoming Rich, and you can find that here.