Why The Sober Folks Are Drunk 80% of The Time

Vilfredo Pareto, the famous Italian economist of the early 1900s observed in his garden that 80% of the fruit came from 20% of the plants. Today, his principle states that roughly 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes.

Numbers seldom disappoint. 80% of wealth is concentrated within 20% of the population. 80% of votes cast anywhere in the world come from those outside the wealth bracket. 80% of followers of any religion come from the same group of people. The same 80% of the population are the source of income or labour for the wealthy 20%.

So why are the majority drunk most of the time? They may not be inebriated per se but they conduct themselves as such because, unlike the wealthy, life, by commission or omission, has conspired to deny them the presence and richness of mind needed to navigate their affairs with clarity. 20/20 forward vision resides with the 20% to make it 20/20/20.

The wealthy have mechanisms within their social settings to receive useful information. The majority receive information in the form of edited news from the media channels owned by the rich minority. Incomewise, 80% of the people run out of money before month-end. This restricts their vision to a few days within the month.

How do you expect such a person to sustain a conversation about thinking five years ahead when his biggest problem is to find immediate income to sustain him for the next five days?

Within the 80% are three categories of people. The real middle class, the struggling middle class, and the floating middle class just above the surviving masses. The floating middle class comprises those who are one misfortune away from slipping further down the economic pecking order. Between them and progress is the word 'precarious' and it often comes at them in a manner that makes any gains made a temporality and a fact of the harsh life that they find themselves in.

So, the 80%, joint and severally, navigate the dizzying pace and cost of things in this world in a manner that gets them to appear as if in a drunken stupor most times. A respectable professor in this group will spend time convincing you about why electing an uneducated person is our best bet in a world that is firmly part of the knowledge economy. Abilities must perfectly resonate with, and measure up to the challenges of the day. But how can the good professor think otherwise when his economic scope tethers him to within a five-day window?

The miscreant has the ear of the law enforcement ecosystem more times than the law-abiding citizenry does. Whereas idealism is a rarity, anchoring everything on the standards of a drunk majority amounts to killing society because the world thrives on actual principles of nature even though the majority wade through life without a clear plan. Principles are never democratic. But when firmly adhered to, then political democracy can thrive albeit, to keep the masses feeling relevant. And that is why the political class feed the masses on plenty of hope.

But all is not doom and gloom in the 80% corner. This is the breeding ground for the world's next 20%. Many pull themselves by their bootstraps and end up as shining successes.

20/20/20 vision exists in the less fortunate world too. It is the rules and the rigorous climb-out regimes that must be strictly adhered to. Not for lack of local success stories, but Arnold Schwarzenegger's is the epitome of the rags to riches story. Without money and the benefit of spoken English from his native Austria, he rose to be Mr. Universe in America a record seven times and became very famous for just saying: "I'll be back" in the movie, The Terminator. He was governor of Califonia too.

The 80% corner produces successful people only when they take concrete steps to surmount the harsh tides of this world. This is what I call "the walk to sobriety", and anyone with conviction and determination can make that walk.

Don't make the world mimic a huge pub.

Just always remember that 80% of your circumstances are within your grasp and require your resolve to overcome.