“The Scarcity Trap: Why We Keep Digging When We’re Stuck In A Hole”
Here’s an interesting NPR podcast about the psychological “scarcity trap”: http://www.npr.org/2017/03/20/520587241/the-scarcity-trap-why-we-keep-digging-when-were-stuck-in-a-hole.
When you’re in need of something, your mind is enveloped by a kind of “tunnel vision” prompting you to solve short term problems in ways that are detrimental to long term success. This can apply to food, money, social contact, time, …
I personally have most experience with this issue in terms of functional vision skills scarcity. My underdeveloped binocular vision makes it harder to accomplish certain tasks so historically I used to double down on my cumbersome strabismic vision habits in order to solve a problem that was right in front of me. In other words, inefficient short term problem solving instead of wholesome long term vision development. This resulted in digging an even deeper hole for myself. This trend was most apparent during my student days. All my time and effort was spend trying to get my courses read. This created all kinds of new scarcities and problems. Of course, back then, I wasn’t yet informed about the long term possibility of improving my visual functionality… In some clear ways this is a scarcity trap manufactured and maintained by our current vision care system.
The broader point I am trying to make, however, is that sometimes a scarcity of properly developed two-eyed functional vision creates all the other scarcities you can think of (money, food, time, social contact, education, reading ability, general health and fitness, sanity…). That’s why, if not addressed appropriately and timely, the scarcity of properly developed and coordinated vision is so dangerous. This stuff can end very badly.