Staying Hungry

I read an article recently by Tom Friedman in the NYT called, "The World is Flat." It's about the increasing competition from places like India and the hunger that people there have for the American lifestyle.

Meanwhile, in America, it's easy to get soft. I mean, you have your Tivo, er, Media Center PC (a Microsoft product), you have entire industries catering to leisure activities, and you think you are entitled to things like vacation, cheap gas, and Internet service. With the affluence that many of us have (we may not be super rich and of course we have monetary concerns, but we're not starving and many of our basic and advanced needs aremet), is it easy to get soft?

The question then: how do you keep hungry? Money is, to some extent a motivator, but who's going to give more of himself, the immigrant off the boat (or the remote technician in Bangalore) who is trying to save enough money to buy a house or send his kid to college, or the Ivy league educated lawyer who's got a house, 2 cars, takes vacations to Europe, and does yardwork on the weekends for fun?

For a while, that works. But Friedman points out that the challenges we face are greater now, there is more competition and you can't stand still. The paradigm for "making it" and having a career have changed. I've been told that when people reach a certain age or status, they start to "coast." Friedman's point is, you can never coast.

Is knowing that enough? How do you convince others?

I read about high school kids who drink and use drugs and have wild parties and wonder if that's symptomatic of having too much affluence. Are the other kids who have to prove themselves, learn English or whatever, going out and partying or are they home studying?

I saw a friend last night who's a bright guy, roughly my age, who said, "I don't read anymore. When I come home from a hard day's work, I want to be entertained, so I watch 24."

Some TV is good, but are we entitled to entertainment? I'm wondering if there's another guy who wants my friend's job is out there studying up on the field, thinking up the next big idea, and while 24 is on, is going to put my friend's livelihood on the line.

Maybe I've read too much of Andy Grove's "Only the Paranoid Survive."