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Short-termism leads to problems which lead to short-termism
Hakann via channel A. S.
Posted on February 23, 2026
My dearest brothers and sisters,
This is Hakann speaking. I greet you in peace and love.
This channeler is working through some personal issues in his life, as well as focusing more on his personal psychological health and spiritual practice. Hence the lack of recent channelings. Yet, I am grateful that I can once again talk to you.
Let’s discuss how humans act. Of course people are different, so this is merely a generalization. The following won’t apply to every human out there.
If people have their needs met (including psychological well-being, including being rested), then people will automatically do things that help them develop, they will try out new activities, they’ll do research and listen to other perspectives, they’ll try different methods to do existing activities, they’ll talk to new people, they’ll have necessary conversations even if they’re difficult, they’ll engage in self-improvement, they’ll do things that are hard now but good for the medium term, et cetera.
This is why small children are so eager, full of life and happy to learn and experiment.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of people do not have their needs met, and are not like that.
If people don’t have their needs met (and psychological well-being is one of them), they often start thinking in the short term, they often engage in comfort-seeking behavior and they often try to fight symptoms rather than the root cause. For example, if a person doesn’t feel loved enough, he may buy a fancy sports car that gets him some attention.
They may also become entrenched in beliefs and worldviews and ideologies that are psychologically comfortable for them. This is why it’s so impossible to change someone’s mind on a political topic, even if you have excellent arguments and sources.
An issue is that if people don’t have their needs met, they often start behaving in short-term oriented ways, and sometimes they may start behaving in ways that harm others. Which makes those other people behave in more short-term, protective ways, that in turn may harm yet other people, et cetera.
Ideally, a person who doesn’t have their needs met does the hard work of meeting their needs -- which may very well involve years of psychological work and years of just creating a good life for themselves.
Lots of people who don’t have their needs met, aren’t going to spend years doing fundamental painful work that only pays off in the medium term, such as doing years of tough psychological work. Instead they often only do what’s necessary or what pays off in the relatively short term.
So what in practice often happens is that people try to get people to be productive not by encouraging them to heal and get them to the “internally motivated” state, but rather by imposing laws on them, pressuring them and creating systems that make them homeless or locked up if they don’t work or comply.
This is a less ideal system than a system that would give people the room to grow and develop. However, the “work and obey, or you’re homeless / arrested” system does more or less work -- so long as it doesn’t over-pressure people. If people feel they can’t get comfort or a reasonable life even by working hard and complying, then people may become hopeless, nihilistic, may take up drugs to numb the pain, may just spend all their time on video games or watching tv, may become radical, et cetera.
This is also the problem of the gray hat strategy. Gray hats think that if they pressure people enough then those people will become active. However, over-pressuring people causes them to withdraw rather than spur them into action, and most people are over-pressured already.
Theoretically it would be nice to just give people all the time and resources needed for them to grow (think communism). However, average people who don’t have their needs met may not use that time and money properly to grow and develop. Instead they may very well engage in comfort-seeking or short-term behaviors. Which is one reason why communism doesn’t work as well in practice as you might hope -- even though communism is the perfect system if you have a population of self-actualized people.
So, this is the situation that you are in. Humans are fundamentally amazing beings who are inherently motivated, curious, active, forward-moving and medium-term thinking. However most humans don’t get their needs met, hence most humans are currently stuck in a comfort-seeking, short-term and potentially harm-others mode.
This is why it can feel so hopeless to encourage people to take actions that help them in the medium term, or to get them to see an uncomfortable truth. Many people won’t do that, because they’re struggling now, and people who are struggling now typically aren’t willing to do challenging things that only pay off in the medium term. Even people who are financially doing fine may very well struggle emotionally and hence still be motivated to engage in short-termism.
Some people who are struggling will accept taking on even more short-term effort in order to improve their life in the medium term. However, many people won’t. This is why you rarely see people go to a psychologist (unless they hit a wall and have no choice), because people in pain are rarely willing to take on more pain just to improve their life in the medium term.
Instead, men often advise other struggling men to hit the gym, because that’s something that can actually feel good and give some dopamine very soon after starting out. Whereas going to a psychologist will likely only start bearing fruit months or years down the line and many people in pain aren’t willing to wait that long. (Although it’s also a problem that a psychologist is unaffordable for lots of people.)
Hence the title: short-termism leads to problems which leads to short-termism. And unfortunately, most people who don’t have their needs met won’t listen to suggestions that they start optimizing for the medium term. So it can be pretty hard to break out of the loop that everyone engages in short-termism because everyone engages in short-termism.
So, to preserve your own sanity: understand that most people don’t have their needs met, and hence are just looking for comfort and for things that feel good in the short term. They very well may resist “do this challenging thing that will bear fruit in the medium term” or “here’s an uncomfortable truth” because they’re focused on the short-term. Obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone, but it applies to a lot of people.
So, what can you do? Well, one part of the solution is to metaphorically put on your own air mask first, because fixing society (or even fixing one organization) is hard.
That said, just being kind to people can help a great deal. Kindness won’t solve all of humanity’s problems, but then again, it’s not your job to fix all of humanity’s problems.
Also, offering help or offering good suggestions or sharing the truth can help. If people resist, don’t push, but even just offering help or offering the truth once can plant a seed that later blossoms once people feel less stressed out (even if people don’t give you the credit later).
And sometimes people will refuse to listen and refuse to change until they hit a wall, or until they hit rock bottom. It doesn’t feel good to see others go through this, but ultimately people have free will, and you have to let people make their own choices.
To get to an amazing society, you would need a system where fewer children get hurt. You’d need a system that isn’t so exhausting and draining and emotionally upsetting to be a part of. And you’d need a system where self-improvement mechanisms are available and relatively easy to use, and where productive actions plausibly lead to a good life (as opposed to the current system where being a moral, hard-working person may not lead to a good life).
With all my love,
