transitory things
life is a continuum rather than a fixed point in time
At various times, I manage to squeeze into these columns a reminder that we take time for granted as if what we see today were the only possible set of circumstances or conditions for the world. We don’t often recognize our sense of perspective is short. In other words, just because something appears a certain way today doesn’t mean we should take for granted will inevitably remain constant. This little factor plays a great part in how we look at failures and successes.
Monday’s Wall Street Journal presses home this point with a seemingly ubiquitous case. The largest home delivery service today is not UPS, Fedex, or the U.S. Post Office. Instead, the title goes to Amazon because so many of us use that service. Makes all of the sense in the world, doesn’t it, Cynthia?
Well, no actually, there once was a time when Amazon looked like a crazy idea. No, for those of you under 45, I am serious. In the mid-1990s, Jeff Bezos seemed a nut case because he had created this book sales and distribution service that perpetually lost money. Quarter after quarter after quarter. Amazon seemed an utterly losing proposition if one looked at the third quarter of 1995 when the Clinton White House had never worried about an intern named Monica Lewinsky and Newt Gingrich assumed he would serve as Speaker of the House for decades.
According to globaldata.com, Amazon did not turn a profit until just before the end of 2002. As late as 2014, it was still marginally unprofitable. Things turned around spectacularly by 2019, followed three years later by its central position as a provider of all sorts during the COVID pandemic. Bezos today is on the wealthiest visionaries in the world.
What happened? Why did things seem so different thirty years back? How and why did things unfold as they did? We were focusing on a single moment in time—the one we were living in. At the same time, Borders Books, a long defunct company, was still expanding across the country with a seemingly bountiful future.
Trends are complex cycles with confounding data at times, undergirded by our individual assumptions. But the key is that dynamism changes things all the time, some big and some tiny.
100 years ago Japan controlled Taiwan and Korea. The Chinese civil war was a fantasy for the fledgling CCP. Britain still expected to govern India in perpetuity along with Hong Kong. Things changed but sometime we miss the signs.
Where would this observation be most relevant for the United States today? Where are the beneficial trends?
Wonder if the world would seem different if we recognized the transitory nature of so much in our lives. Not everything but a great deal.
Thank you for reading Actions Create Consequences. I welcome your thoughts on the question of time and changes in leadership of industries—in fact, I welcome thoughts on any topic.
Be well and be safe. FIN
‘Amazon’ on globaldata.org, 27 November 2023, retrieved at https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/retail-and-wholesale/amazons-annual-net-income/
Dana Mattioli and Esther Fong, ‘‘The biggest delivery business in the U.S. is no longer UPS or Fedex’, wsj.com, 27 November 2023, retrieved at https://www.wsj.com/business/amazon-vans-outnumber-ups-fedex-750f3c04?mod=hp_lead_pos2