Copyright (c) 2010 Scott F Paradis

Is the burgeoning population a crisis in the making?

The population of the United States now exceeds 309 million persons. The global population is closing in on 6.83 billion persons. China and India each have populations exceeding 1 billion persons. The United Nations estimates the global population is expanding by approximately 80 million persons per year. That is we are adding nearly 220,000 people per day to the global family. Demographers expect the world's population to peak at approximately 9.5 billion persons sometime around the year 2050.

Clearly the surging population presents risks - risks you recognize and appreciate. Buried within every crisis, however, are seeds of opportunity. If you want to succeed and prosper in this life, you must choose a "glass half full" attitude and embrace opportunity.

People enable both sides of the supply and demand dynamic. The desires, energy, and focus of human minds produce both the wants and needs and the products and processes to fulfill those wants and needs. Human beings possess, store, and create value for themselves and for other people.

Men and women, young and old, have desires. They experience feelings of lack through biology (survival needs) or sociology (observations of others and expectations of what is, or could be, possible for themselves). Feelings of lack are opportunities. Wants and needs, desires and aspirations, are demand.

Simultaneously, and fortuitously, desires are the seeds of motivation to take action, organize, learn, and produce. Human beings naturally possess both the means and the motivation to fulfill their desires. Desires, and the system built to achieve desires, are the means empowering motives and driving action. Desire is the launching pad for achievement.

The cumulative value of human beings is in: desires (wants and needs to be met); motivation (to focus and act); knowledge (newly created or already acquired); and labor (the physical ability to act). Today, society is so complex, hardly anyone possesses the capability to survive alone. In his most famous essay, "I, Pencil", Leonard Read eloquently observes even a simple pencil is impossible for one man to create alone and unaided. Producing a product as seemingly simple as a pencil requires untold energy and the evolution of a volume of knowledge far beyond the capacity of one mere mortal.

Human beings individually possess immense value. But collectively, for the wealth of knowledge humanity possesses, the complexity of the system humans have developed and employ, and the collaboration and cooperation self-interested, but practical people engage in to produce - the value of human beings increases exponentially.

People have needs to be met, desires to fulfill, and experiences to create. People are the economic engine on both the consumption and production sides of the supply and demand equation. If you aspire to riches, recognize and accept, people are the means to prosperity.

Yes, the population is surging. Yes, challenges abound. But next time you are caught in traffic, or queued up in a line, remember: more people means more opportunity. Look for and seize opportunities to fulfill desires, then you will live a more full and fulfilling life.