Stop Waiting for Someone to Lead You Out of This Mess
The Global Search for Salvation
Nobody takes care of your business like you do.
Everyone is waiting for someone else to come along with simple answers to all their problems.
Across the globe, people are looking upward for salvation. Americans wait for the next president to fix everything. Europeans wait for Brussels or Berlin to provide direction. Citizens everywhere scan the horizon for that messenger from above who will somehow untangle the web of crises choking modern life.
This is the fork in the road we face as a species: continue waiting for a savior who isn’t coming, or accept that we must lead ourselves out of this mess.
The Professional Lying Class
The brutal truth is that the politician class has trapped us in an endless cycle of getting nowhere fast. Professional liars promise easy solutions to complex problems, knowing they’ll never have to deliver. They’ve discovered something more valuable than actually solving problems: the ability to campaign on them forever. Immigration, globalization, affordability, healthcare, education, infrastructure, climate change—these become eternal talking points rather than challenges to address.
Consider the absurdity of voters who hate taxes but cheer for tariffs, which are simply taxes by another name. This isn’t about intelligence; it’s about the magical thinking that emerges when people desperately want to outsource their problems so they don’t have to think about them in any constructive and thoughtful manner.
When the Watchdogs Stop Watching
The media, once positioned as protection against political deception, has largely abdicated its watchdog role. Whether through capture, incompetence, or broken business models, journalism has become another participant in the performance rather than an independent referee. Social media promised to democratize information but instead created new opportunities for manipulation.
Meanwhile, deficits explode, infrastructure crumbles, and real problems compound while politicians point fingers and voters reward the best storytellers rather than the most effective problem-solvers.
This system isn’t broken; it’s working exactly as designed. Politicians stay in power by never actually solving anything, and voters avoid the discomfort of taking responsibility for collective problems.
We are just putting a new coat of paint on everything every four or eight years or so.
What Adult Democracy Looks Like
But here’s what responsible democratic participation actually looks like: understanding that real solutions involve trade-offs and sacrifice. Demanding specific plans instead of soaring rhetoric. Voting for politicians who tell uncomfortable truths rather than comfortable lies.
Putting your tooth under your pillow is not the path to salvation.
The path forward isn’t abandoning democracy—it’s engaging with it like adults rather than children hoping for magical fixes. It means learning what you should have learned in civics class and economics.
This applies at every scale. Personal problems require personal solutions. Nobody has any personal responsibility anymore. Everyone is a victim.
Community challenges need community engagement. National issues demand citizens who think critically about policies rather than falling for campaign promises.
Adults Aren’t Coming to Wipe Your Ass for You
Blaming others leads only to self-deception and nowhere else. The leaders you’re waiting for aren’t coming. They were never coming. And even if they did show up they’ll just cheat you if you blindly hand over your trust because you “feel good” about them. They are professional manipulators dealing three card monte.
The crisis of leadership we’re experiencing globally isn’t actually a crisis—it’s an evolutionary pressure pushing responsibility where it belongs: with individuals and communities capable of authentic problem-solving rather than professional performance.
Your mother isn’t coming to clean your room. The adults aren’t coming to fix the world. You are the adult now.
The question isn’t who will lead us out of this mess. The question is when we’ll stop waiting and start leading ourselves.
Sometimes we get lucky and great leaders do come along. Planning on getting lucky is not a plan. And as the saying goes: Luck favors the prepared.