How to Stop Raising a Generation of Consumers

Epcot - Walt Disney World, Florida

It appears that we have been creating a society that has become dependent on others to teach them how to do something (old or new). This tends to hamper innovation and continuous process improvement. Sometimes, this can even promote laziness and/or complacency.

Hence, I don't completely agree with the quote,

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." 

Contingency Planning: What happens if they run out of fish?


I'd rather inspire someone to teach himself/herself how to fish; that way, he/she would be less likely to use the excuse, "No one taught me how." This will likely condition the person to teach himself/herself to do more new things and be more resourceful on his/her own.  This type of person would have already figured something out long before the fish ran out.

We need more thought leaders and innovators, not just production workers. Otherwise, we'll be left with mostly jobs in the service industry (i.e. hospitality / tourism, restaurant / fast food, healthcare, etc.) while we watch most of the other higher-paying jobs get sent offshore to reduce the cost of production.

In addition, we have been hiring immigrants at an increasing rate to fill shortage areas, i.e. healthcare jobs. Most of these workers tend to send a majority of their income back to their respective countries to support their families back home. That money is not being spent here to promote more business.

This isn't entirely bad, provided that we keep generating new and original ideas, products, and services--either through collaboration or on our own--faster than we send them offshore. The moment this stops or dwindles (and we become complacent), the next generation will greatly suffer; because no matter what, we will continue to send jobs offshore to keep costs low and stay competitive in the marketplace. It is the cost of keeping things affordable, especially in a price-sensitive economy.

Simply put, we are sending our jobs there, they are sending the money earned here back there, and we are buying more and more products from there. We need more money to come in and we cannot solely rely on our own people to accomplish this by buying local. That is not always fair. We need to start creating more and consuming less so that other countries will start bringing their money here.

As a nation, we don't simply need to create more jobs; we need to create new jobs as well. We need more intellectual capital of our own. We need to invest more in our own people (instead, we tend to lay them off and replace them with machines and/or outsource their work). We need to invest more in our own children.

While they certainly play a big role, I don't think our teachers can inspire our next generation leaders on their own. This is primarily the parents' job to do, and it is critical for us to shape our children's learning environment accordingly. It is undeniably a tough job.

We know quite well that we shouldn't always give our children the answer to everything, neither should we always give them all of the pieces of the puzzle. If they can't find it, they can create it. They don't always need to buy a new puzzle.

Let's inspire our children to be more resourceful and creative, and that usually begins by setting the example that:

It is more beneficial to consume less and create more.

The moment we limited our children's access to toys and electronics, the more their resourcefulness and creativity shined through--they made their own toys! Now, they feel as if they can make any toy that they can possibly imagine. They started thinking out of the box! They are not sulking in the absence of their toys or electronic games anymore; they are thriving! They began to consume less and create more.

Dare your children to be original! It's time to raise more thought leaders and innovators. The investment is well worth it.

Are you raising a bunch of consumers or are you raising a new generation of thought leaders and innovators?