"Complexity" -- The Chief Culprit Why People Do Not Get Involved But Stay Passive

During his June 2007 Harvard Commencement Address, Bill Gates pointed out to an important factor of our daily lives that keeps many people from getting more involved in local and global issues:

COMPLEXITY...

I agree with Gates that most things in our lives are so complex that most of us end up throwing our hands in the air and letting things follow their own complicated and convoluted course.

It is ironic that Bill Gates, the head of a multinational corporation that gave us the 25-million-lines of Windows code, is now complaining about "complexity." However, irony aside, his point is a valid one.

The last time I was on a digital treadmill machine, trying to find a way to push and configure its crazy buttons and the stupefying array of "options" that did not seem to do anything, I remembered Gates and his tirade against "complexity."

So how can we all cope with complexity?

Here is a strategy that definitely does NOT yield any results: "trying to learn how things work A-to-Z, whether it is a legislative system or a complex treadmill machine. "

We all know that this is easier said than done. Actually, if it was easy to do so, then there would be no complaints about "complexity" at all. We would just quickly learn everything new and get on with our lives.

But obviously, even Bill Gates cannot learn as quickly as he needs to. As long as "learning more" is our main strategy, we'll always lag a few steps behind and "complexity" will persist as a psychological state.

I will explain my two main strategies to cope with complexity, regardless of the topic or issue, in another article.