By Kevin Stoda
Yesterday, I was introduced to the story of the 2-year old Indonesian boy who has a two-pack a day cigarette habit because his father introduced him to smoking at an early age. His father says that the boy started his habit when he was 18 months old. Everyone seems to have had something to say about this story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmv7YHFB-N8&feature=related
Naturally, all this YouTube publicity has created a bad image for all parents in the boys country and has also tarnished the national image of Indonesia. The Indonesian government has stated that it is discouraging the parents from allowing the boy to continue smoking. The parents note that the boy cries in pain when he doesn't get his fix.
On YouTube a lot of people have been interviewed and spoken out against the boys parents allowing and encouraging the boy to smoke. (The father claimed that he introduced the boy to the habit because the boy had had pain from a hernia.) Now the boy must smoke up to 40 cigarettes a day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNDpWp6Fz7I&NR=1
KNOWING ONES LIMITS
According to many educators, "a CHILD gains satisfaction only when HE experiences the limits to his desires, freedoms, and wants." In other words, children will never really be happy until they do not have NOR RECEIVE every wish fulfilled immediately. In this, a young child or maturing adult (a) learns to be patient, (b) learns to be disciplined in their demands, or simply (3) learns how to wait for (or work on) enfolding of new circumstances.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2JnCXvm_Qc
Making really important dreams realisable will not be within that child or young adults grasp. That is to say, if the dream or desire over time continues to be seen as a worthwhile dream or desire, one through discipline can better pattern his lifestyle to achieve it.
GREED AND DESIRE ARE NOT ENOUGH
Now, I admit feeling sorry for the addicted boy--not because he is addicted--we all have our addictions. Rather, I feel sorry because, as Dirty Harry often stated, "A man has to know his limitation." The boy, who is also 100% overweight does not know his limits. How can he ever know happiness?
Similarly, if Americans, WTO members, and Free-Marketiers continue to allow abusive no-limits bonuses to people, like many banking CEOs, who have never ever been introduced at early stages in their lives to discipline and learning to limit their demands for the good of the company, a family, the community, or even their own personal or even national welfare, how can we expect them to behave differently?
In short, as long as there is no discipline and appreciation of limits in terms of bonuses for company helmsmen and stockholders, the post- Cold War Capitalist system will flounder. Greed is unlimited. It knows no boundary on its own. We need a system of participants who know some limitations and respect them. We need to train MBA holders and others in the economy to have integrity, morality and discipline.
Finally, we as stakeholders in the global economy--in a way--are just like the parents of the smoking-addicted boy in Indonesia if we do not discipline and teach the current and future abusers of the system. We need to implant the values of waiting and working on dreams--rather than seizing things simply for the sake of greed or competition.
