Regardless of one's potential (whether it is even possible to become wealthy or very strong), I think it is essential for people to be able to
recognize the effects of their choices on their lives.
That is a major issue humans have, where for our own selves, we attribute what we do to the circumstances, but for others, we attribute internal characteristics. We trip because the carpet was loose, another person trips because he is clumsy.
While I think in the big picture, we can attribute most things to being outside of our control, the choices we make within our own lives do make a difference.
So many times, people give up and abandon themselves to the circumstances.
I have noticed in human life, things get better or worse and rarely stay the same. If we do not use it, we lose it. If we do not exercise our faculties, they become weaker.
Many times, we do clearly observe:
* Weak people actively making themselves weaker through their choices
* Ignorant people actively increasing their ignorance by avoiding learning
* Immoral people actively pursuing more immoral activity, seeing that perfection is not possible, so why try?
* Poor people making themselves poorer through almost deliberate inefficient use of the resources they do have.
Interestingly, the original meaning of the "
What the Hell Effect" was referring to this sort of thinking, especially in habit formation. When a person is trying to break a bad habit, and they slip, they give up and go all in thinking "What the Hell...I might as well go all the way now".
Obviously, this reveals the human tendency to think in very short terms. If we make irreparable mistake in
Tetris (Тетрис, in the original Russian...it was a
Soviet creation and not many people seem to know that), letting the pieces fall where they will, and deliberately losing makes sense. Each round is very short and self contained.
However, if we have long term goals, which most ultimately are in life, we cannot treat it the same as a single round of Tetris. For health, for finances, for morals, for intellectual goals, the goal is ultimately long term, yet, we are inclined to treat it as short term. Even Tetris, if the goal is to accumulate as much lines cleared as possible, then giving up does not make sense as long as one can get one more.
I think this psychological flaw, to think in the very short term, is what causes many to hurt themselves. As the article I linked to earlier showed, the momentary use of money is usually the extent of the thinking people are led to have, paying $1 for 1 item, instead of 1.50 for 2 items, because $1 is cheaper, even though it is known that 2 will be needed this month. Or spending money as soon as it is acquired.
I could go on, but in short,
recognizing the effects of our actions is essential. The poor cannot be expected to lift themselves out of poverty, and the weak cannot be expected to be breaking world records, but they can, in their own lives, alleviate the conditions they despise to some degree, and they surely can make them worse.
So maybe that is truly what the strong do every day...whether they are training or not, they recognize the effects of what they do on themselves.