Negative Externalities
I’m the daughter of an Economics teacher and I believe everyone needs to learn a certain amount of economics, it helps you learn how the world works.
The first thing I want people to learn about is not in fact, supply and demand, it is about positive and negative externalities.
So, first lets talk about Positive externalities, lets talk about an apple you eat that grew in your back garden.
The price of the apple is free, however even though its free it doesn’t reflect the true price of the apple.
The true price of the apple should include the fact that there is no air miles associated with the apple, you picked it 2m from your house, then ate it there.
The true price of the apple should include that the apple is then going to go on your compost heap, which will fertilise that same apple tree so you can eat another apple next year.
The price should include the joy you feel watching the plant grow, bloom and bear fruit and your excitement to eat the fruit come harvest.
The price of the apple should include the fact that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” and it is a healthy and nutritious snack that keeps your blood sugar stable lowering your risk of diabetes and cancers.
And those are the ones I thought of off the top of my head. Those are all positive externalities and they aren’t included in the price of your free apple.
Next we have negative externalities. An easy one is smoking but instead I will talk about life choices.
We often go through our lives “eyes half closed” and we rarely put 2+2 together to make 4.
It was when I had an old boss who loved to say “just” that I realised this.
It was always “just do this,” “just do that” as if things were incredibly easy when in reality it wasn’t the thing that was the problem, it was the consequences of the thing, both intended and unintended that would be the downfall.
It originally started because she was “a Yorkshire lass” with a speech “tick” her speech tick was “I agree” so she’d say “I agree “ in meetings when actually she didn’t agree, for her “I agree” meant “I have understood your point” but of course, that wasn’t the words that came out of her mouth, she had unambiguously stated that she agreed with the person. Which meant she had to “patch” a bridge between her actual opinion and what she’d just agreed to. Hence always saying “Just do….”
Negative externalities is simply a posh economic way of saying the word Consequences. Consequences no ones favourite word but mine. I’m learning to love it.
Firstly I must come after myself. I’ve been trying to lose weight for 2 years now and even though my activity levels have increased rapidly, my weight has been stable. Because of my love of cake/sweets. That is a consequence of my actions. 1 cake has not made me gain weight, but a culmination of my entire diet has. This is a foreseen consequence. I can pretend that this cake is “just 1 cake” but actually if this is the space I inhabit 80% of the time it is my habit. And that habit has a consequence. A consequence I need to own.
In this society we seem to be detached from our consequences. We seem to do things without grasping the full mantle of being alive. As a result we are safely protected from our actions but it also makes us numb.
We numb ourselves with social media, alcohol, drugs, fast food and cigarettes. One of the reasons I want to get out of the rat race, in fact the main reason is because from an early age I wanted to make it to the top. I’m competitive like that. I wanted to make it to Finance Director, which is the job I do now essentially, but in a bigger company. However I also saw from my very first job some deeply unhealthy behaviours. I can name 1 boss that I have had over the span of my career with any sort of balance. All other bosses have a known vice. Alcohol, I had a boss who was in his 40’s as a finance professional, drinking men quite literally half his age under the table. “Thirsty Thurston” they’d call him. Next, in 2 different jobs I had bosses who’d drink 6 cans of Coke/Diet coke (1 liked full fat Coke the other liked Diet Coke they never met each other) per day. I had bosses who had quit smoking for years who’d re-take it up during year ends. Basically I saw every one of my superiors bar one exception, coping through the horrors of the finance world with some sort of crutch. That was because in Finance, people treat you really badly, they abuse you in a way that would be deeply frowned upon if you treated a shop worker like that. But you get paid more so it doesn’t matter if you cry. So people develop coping mechanisms, rather than address the problem. I’m addressing the problem. I don’t want to work horrendous hours and be subject of bullying and abuse. I don’t want to earn good money only to fritter it away on said coping mechanisms that keep me numb but also keep me from experiencing true happiness.
We need to take a holistic view of all our major choices, if you are choosing it, you are paying for it in some way, it may not just be in money, it may be in “externalities” which you don’t see the effect of until cancer and heart disease come and hit you like a bus. It may a divorce because you work too much or you may suffer from burnout. Work is only one of the things we don’t pay attention to the full consequences of our actions. What about diet? How often are we consuming fruit and veg as opposed to processed foods? Are we tracking healthy metrics such as BMI? Are we even conscious what we weigh and how what we put into our bodies, (diet, exercise, stress, sleep cycle) affects this? Do we care?
Then you have money. How we spend it? Are we killing the environment with our choices? Do we need another pair of shoes? Are we buying things for social media? If you are buying things because an influencer told you to, is that influencer paying your bills and are they aware of your personal circumstances? No, well why are we blindly following the crowd when we should be attuned to the nuance that is our own lives.
The reason social media makes so many people miserable is because it is based on a premise of insecurity. Facebook is the art of snooping on your friends and associate circle to see if they are having a good time with you, or without you.
Instagram is the art of posting about how great your life is, which is in fact a moment of joy and extrapolating it to the nth degree to say because you had a nice meal, your life is superior. You absolutely should be glad of the nice meal, however you may go home to a house with mould in it or unpaid rent. A moment of joy, doesn’t mean a happy life.
Social media is an act in self importance not coming from a place of realism or self esteem but a place of deep insecurity. It also feeds our addiction to knowing. It helps people develop deeply unhealthy habits because they get to know other peoples business, therefore they form their lives around presenting a picture which is a façade that is hard to maintain. The result? Burnout. But we don’t talk about that as a well known externality of social media. Another consequence at the extreme end of the scale is suicide when it all really does become too much. We always say “how did this happen? They seemed so happy” Yes, only to you because you had your eyes half closed.
Open your eyes, put down the phone and really feel life. Life is to be felt. If you need a crutch to get through life, examine your life. I know I am. My crutch is sugar. I eat something sweet everyday. It was upon noticing my need for sugar that prompted me to get out of the rat race by going to the root of the problem, it has meant that the journey is not easy for me, however I am at least conscious of it. My journey has been for the past 2 years. I remember in the early stages of Lockdown 1 in the UK (March-May 2020) I would buy sweeties everyday. I hadn’t noticed doing it when I was in London, however because my habits had to change due to Covid-19 I became aware of it. I’ve been working through it with a life coach ever since. And I believe the only way you can truly part ways with an unhealthy habit is if you own all the consequences. And ask yourself “Really? Do I need this?” because sometimes the answer is yes and that’s okay, 1 Mars bar won’t kill you, but its when you sleepwalk into eating 1 Mars bar a day that negative externalities and consequences need to start coming into play. Just be mindful of what you expose yourself to. If its stress, bad food, insufficient exercise, or bad people. Please, just be mindful.
Grace and Courage.
Annetta Mother-Smith.