The 2010s: Innovative Shortcuts, Apprehensive Ads, and Less Actual Doing

In New York, tens of thousands of people lined the streets on Wednesday to ring in the new decade. This sea of people consists of dreamers, tourists, and locals, all looking for a new beginning. Like those waiting to watch the ball drop, I too have been one to seek a fresh start in the midst of failure or stagnation. All of us are trying to start.

Or, just restart... We tell ourselves that we will start at the beginning of next week, the first day of next month, when the new year begins, or, sometimes, in the new decade. I’ve found that I lack patience. More specifically, I lack the patience to endure a journey.

And so, as many have done before, I too will try to signify this decade in three words or less. For me, the 2010s was the decade of shortcuts. 

To understand what I mean, look not at large conflicts, political turmoil, or social events in the last decade, but at where we moved towards as humanity, how the average individual spends their day now, and what our goals have become. 

We began the last decade craving efficiency and spare time. The iPhone 3GS had revolutionized task management and the phone itself, our country was bootstrapping itself out of a recession, and Swine flu had finally been declared a pandemic.

Much of America, in the midst of the ‘08 recession, wanted more time for a second job, more time to spend with their families, and more time to pursue what they actually enjoyed doing. 

Still, none of us knew that hailing a cab, turning our lights on and off without our voices, and paying cashiers with real money were a waste of time.

However, with the advent of Uber, Google Home, and Apple Pay, our generation quickly embraced innovation and pledged our attention and “free time” elsewhere.

Funny enough, the adverts for the most current virtual assistant, smart phone, or smart home system point to the flaw in the psyche of all of us. We crave shortcuts, quick satisfaction, and, the world we live in, reinforces our hunger. 

For example, the ad for Google Home at launch featured a family’s morning routine integrated with the Google Home system. In the ad, a dad wakes up, uses Google to turn the lights on, plays music, wakes his kids up, and checks his schedule.

Then, mom uses Google to check traffic, change a dinner reservation, and see if a packet has arrived. Last, the kids use Google to translate words for their Spanish homework and look up facts about galaxies nearest to us.

While the ad may exaggerate how much technology is really involved in our daily routine, it still marks the beginning of more and more machines taking over the mundane tasks that we hate doing. In this scenario, we see a family conditioned to quick and easy resolutions to their daily concerns.

In the last decade on a much larger scale, we have sacrificed hard work, grit, and struggle for shortcuts that the world around us reinforces. The Google Home, or any other virtual assistant, is one of many examples of it. 

This last decade also saw an increase in get-rich-quick schemes, popularly advertised on Facebook or YouTube. Now more than ever, our social feeds are filled with day trading, Amazon FBA, dropshipping, or real estate investing courses by someone who has “made it” and is ready to share their “secrets” for success with us. We find ourselves bombarded constantly with chances to change our life quick.

We want to be rich tomorrow, graduate tomorrow, have a successful business tomorrow, or turns our lives around tomorrow. When the reality is, the most rewarding successes, awards, and achievements are the ones we fought for. 

Yes, these may just be ads. Yes, this might not apply to many people around the world. However, the prevalence of this phenomena is still a signal to a more profound change on our outlook towards life and the world. Today, we spend more and more time on a social network, build fake personas of ourselves, and buy followers if we need to.

Our generation craves likes and retweets, not effort and perseverance. So, when I look back on this decade, I see innovative shortcuts, less time actually doing, and reinforced temporary happiness. It’s up to all of us whether or not we wish to change our trajectory. 

For me, in the coming decade, I will strive for patience; the patience to let effort take its course, the patience to follow through on goals and commitments, and the patience to seek not just the low-hanging fruit, but the “reward” worth fighting for. By learning to endure a journey, we, as a people, will end up much farther in 2030.