Most People Have the Mentality of the Zero-Sum Game
By: Jun Wu
Tags: Life Lessons, Entrepreneurship, Politics, Self, Capitalism

Most People Have the Mentality of the Zero-Sum Game

My social experiment for the last few years offline and online.

@garidy unsplash.com

5 years ago, I asked a friend, “Do you think people genuinely want what’s good for you?” This friend replied, “No, no one will want what’s good for you, because it takes away from what they can get. They always want what’s good for themselves.” This person is no longer my friend. As I was sitting there asking this question, this person pondered on what more they can gain from me.

Slowly, I spent the next five years trying to prove this person wrong. I am an eternal optimist. I wanted to believe that people in this world still cared for one another. From my upbringing, it’s very easy for me to just believe that the whole world is simply a “zero-sum game”. But, as I spent more time socializing within my community both online and offline, I realized that most people around me know that it’s a “zero-sum game”.

If they don’t show it, they either hide it very well or they are not honest with themselves.

For a long time, I simply refused to get the memo. I didn’t want to believe that’s true. When I was battered and battle-scarred, I rationalized people’s actions toward me. I wanted to believe in the “good” of everyone.

For a long time, I wrote articles such as Praying to Give vs. Praying to Get.

But, each time, I wanted to believe that people can have a mentality of abundance, someone, through their actions tell me that they will take my slice of pie.

I’m not complaining. I’m simply sad.

I think the world has come to this point because umair haque so elegantly explained that we are in “The Age of the Sociopath”.

Somehow, on our way into a supposedly better world, we’ve robbed our people of the basics that they need to live: education, food, shelter, and healthcare.

As we take out more loans for our mortgage in the world of skyrocketing housing prices, as our schools don’t have enough funding for our kid’s education, as minimum wage jobs put remote workers at increased risk of not getting paid, and as we spend more on healthcare, we are forcing everyone to fend for themselves in this society of “limited resources”.

Everyone who used to be nice, kind, and genuine, when threatened with the possibility of losing their livelihood, their place in society, and their dreams unfulfilled, rages against the system.

Everywhere I looked in the past five years, there were people around me who are slowly “seething” against the system. Every small success I had was met with a blow to the gut by someone else. Every “help” I received from someone was deemed a “privilege” by someone else.

If someone gives me a penny, then I always expect someone else to come along to take a dollar away from me. Because I know that intrinsically, society doesn’t favor me. Society is against who I am because I wasn’t born in the US. I only earned my place in the US through hard work and perseverance.

In America, you are made to battle everyone else for…everything. Nothing is your right, really. You must fight bitterly for education, for healthcare, for a little bit of money, for food to eat, for a roof over your head.- umair haque

At the tail end of every small success in this world, I found people asking me for their share of my pie. If I didn’t hand out every single slice I had, they will harm me.

This was true in my own family, true in the community I was in, true in the community I moved to, and the social media community I sought shelter in.