Are economic forces and economic growth affected by people's mindsets?

I have been thinking of the rippling effect this past couple of days. When a droplet of water kisses the river, it creates several beautiful rings. For every action, there comes a reaction. Thus, everything that we do creates an effect or a series of effects. But in order to bring about any effect, one must have a reason to do a certain action. What would bring about this action?

There has to be an innate urge or intention to do a certain action. Nobody sane would suddenly punch someone for no reason. I'm sorry but I do not believe in, Trip ko lang! That's all bull seriously. There has to at least be a minimal pushing factor to execute something. If we do not fully intend to do something, it must have at least been put into execution by our subconscious.

This brings me to my point, are economic forces and growth affected by our mindsets? Are they actually affected by our dispositions or what we believe in? I have always been a believer that Filipinos are one of the most resilient people in the world. We have a very high adversity quotient. We do not simply give up to the challenges that we face. May it be flood, volcanic erruption, landslide, we easily cope with the tragedies and move on with our lives. It is amazing. I saw one of the episode of the apprentice way back and they showed successful people-turned-bums because of 9/11. No offense but Filipinos have experienced way more than that event. Way more and most of them are standing up with smiles on their faces (at least for now...).

If we are so good in handling adversity, why then do we lag behind in our economic output? Let us not undermine the fact that our GNP is growing but we have never actually experienced a BOOM. One of the premiere economist in the Philippines has been criticized for having a poor forecast about this economic boom. Our university founder, Dr. Bernardo Villegas was given the name Prophet of Boom. So, why then have we not seen such a boom?

In my opinion, I would attribute this sad event to three reasons:

1.) Our mindsets are directed towards what is bad. It is a pity that people actually visit this blog: www.cofibean.blogspot.com. It is a blog that criticizes the underprivileged Filipinos. This is writen by a Filipino himself. He refers to the unprivileged as native orcs. The bad part is, people have somehow found the comments as something to laugh about. Truth is, the blog could be funny in a way because the author is ridiculously stupid; couple it up with his bastardizing of the English and Filipino languages with a flavor of pure discrimination and mean people would find it a delight. This is however, really sad. I mean, Filipinos have always been famous of coining jokes and anecdotes regarding our being pasaway, our kababayans mispronouncing certain words and some people who are jologs. We laugh at it but we hate it. We hate the fact that these things exist and yet we find laughter in these things. It is really pathetic. I would admit I am guilty with some of these bad traits. A couple of days ago, my friend and I talked about this and she gave me a really interesting comment: We hate some parts of our culture but we are the ones who actually make it. It is also sad that we treat it as a joke. You would even hear these jokes in homilies or by people in authority. It is bad. This to me, is a big problem. You see, you tend to look at yourself the way you are treated. If you let people push you around, you accept your status as a loser. You are almost good-for-nothing. And you accept what the jocks do to you. If you wear some really nice suits and ties, You would really feel like you are a corporate worker and you find great esteem in this. It could be bad when you put others down to uplift your status. But the point is, you tend to act in the way you perceive yourself. Sadly, we accept our mediocrity and our pasaway so we tend to act like this. Ika nga nila, pasaway talaga tayo. So magpasaway na tayong lahat. We create horrible norms and we just laugh at them and perform them.

2.) As a corollary, we actually accept bads in our society and culture that we just get immuned to being treated in such a way. In high school, we came up with really offending nicknames and we hit each other jokingly. We got used to it and it sort of became a joke. Some people would be offended by it but to us, it's mundane; it's our norm. I would dare say that this is true in the real world. We get so used to the bad things around us. We satisfy ourselves with poorly maintained jeepneys, tricycles and buses. I ripped three of my shirts in the jeepney because there are hanging metals. My shirt sometimes get dirty because of the dust and a cockroach once flew to me inside the jeepney. It is disgusting and terrible but we're used to it. Get over it. Third World Country. That's what you pay for not using your car or not having one. We go to certain parts in Guadalupe or any poor area with gulubongs (gulong sa bubong to keep the roofs sturdy against typhoons).We see it as the way it is. Eh ganun talaga eh! Sino bang may hindi ganun sa area na yun? Makuntento ka na! Thus, we get to have sub par living conditions and we settle for it. It's terrible. We look at it as if we don't deserve better. Mind you! WE DO DESERVE BETTER! WE DESERVE THE BEST!

3.) Lastly, whenever we surpass any adversary, we tend to be all optimistic and cheerful. We take pride in surviving tragedies and look at ourselves as if we are omnipotent and we can survive everything. Wake up! We barely make it. We should not be complacent. The fact that thousands die every year because of typhoons indicate that we are not at all omnipotent. Please lang! Let us all seek to actually prevent deaths instead of relying on luck and graces to save ourselves. When we survive typhoons, it does not mean we are strong. It only means the typhoon affected a different region. The problem is, we are victims of poor path dependence. We experience the same bad, shitty things because we don't do anything to fight the problem. We allow people to die and we give them donations to rebuild their houses and stop from there. We report on charitable institutions donating to victims only to find out that those who survived will be affected again next year. I think there is a foundation who is starting to resolve this but the fact is, the majority are still sitting on their asses. Scratching their heads and saying, Sus! Ganyan talaga ang buhay!

Do I think economic forces and economic growth are affected by people's mindsets? Hell yeah! The numbers do not lie. And the numbers are reflections of what are being done. If we do mediocre things, we shouldn't be shocked with mediocre results.