Guarantees are Cheap
Savage / Zen Newsletter No. 102
Everyone seems to want to be “healed” without changing, to be “enlightened” without suffering, or to “arrive” without moving. This is deeper than blaming social media or outrage porn on cable news. It goes further than cheap dopamine and instant gratification.
We’ve busied ourselves to death because we believe the lie of modernization, that technology and industry will be our saviors from the unforgiving truths of nature we fancy ourselves removed from.
Be civilized, the state demands. Consume. Obey. We’re happy to rent your dreams to you. We’ll subsidize the tools and outsource the processes; so long as you don’t get too many good ideas.
The Western World, or at least my perception from here in America, is that it’s become a cesspool of empty promises, quick fixes, and cash grabs. Everything is a sales funnel and we’ve all been duped.
I’m not just talking about $19.99 e-books about how to make a million dollars, or the 10,000th iteration of 6-minute abs. This is a multi-generational cultural problem. For post-WW2 boomers, food became a commodity and the US dollar went off the gold standard.
X-ers were sold the idea that “college is how you get the good jobs” while Millennials footed $100,000 bills just to move back in with their parents and work at Starbucks.
We don’t just have a military industrial complex; we also have food, pharmacy, education, and medical industrial complexes as well. They’re driven by commodity consumption rather than capital. Much reviled corporate greed is heavily orchestrated by and benefited from by our government and it’s “public service” officials.
Unfortunately, mental health and fitness, two arenas I’m very involved in, aren’t exceptions to these phenomenon.
Have you ever signed up on a tele-health platform only to be met by burnt out therapist after burnt out therapist? It’s not totally their fault. They’re getting scalped for half their private rate and trying to raise a family.
I can’t tell you how many trainers I’ve seen who might as well be counting the holes in the ceiling tile while their clients do some concocted medicine-ball quarter squat they just saw on TikTok.
But hey, if you sign up today you’ll get a free t-shirt!
I’ve written hundreds of treatment plans and dozens upon dozens of training plans over the years. What exactly am I supposed to be demonstrating to “managed care?” Is it that change will occur when called forth from the ether within the allotted reimbursement time frame or designated treatment session?
The only things we can guarantee are our attention and action. Sometimes those too are flimsy — life is complicated and humans aren’t widgets. Every clinical notebook I’ve ever owned has had a simple question and four suggestions written on the front of it.
What Help Have I to Give? (*, *)
Show Up
Pay Attention
Tell the Truth
Don’t be Attached to Outcomes
Now that I think about it, that’s not a bad treatment plan or training plan. It speaks to a much different kind of “satisfaction guarantee!” No, I won’t give you your money back “if you’re not completely satisfied.”
To grow, you will have to take risks. I won’t hold your hand, but if it helps you mend then I won’t stop it (*).
The next time a trainer promises that their program will “add 50 lbs to your bench press”, look a little deeper. Likewise, when a medication is espoused as “safe and effective” with no side effects or risks we should heed the same caution.
For a mere $500,000 you can earn your BJJ black belt in 3.5 years like the ,(allegedly) prodigious Derek Moneyberg (*). But I think I found a secret. My black belt cost $25 from Hyperfly; what I paid was about 1,800 hours and disfigurement of my ears, fingers, and teeth.
Deliverables don’t lie. Ignore the promises. Deliver and let go.