Say you want to loose weight, or tone up your body, what would be the first thing you'd do? Increase your exercise rate, maybe change your eating habits, right? Well, though the rational mind tells you that this is how it works, actions not always lead you down this road. Modern life with its obsession about instant gratification, its preference for procrastination and the fobia towards hard work and responsability, has created a new concept, a new niche for ripping people off their money by selling people the idea that in order to get something - anything - all you need is to spend money. Buy the new, revolutionary machine that will get you in shape by using it only five minutes a day, and you can use it while watching TV! Or buy the new pills or the new shake with which you won't have to change a thing of your unhealthy way of life, and yet you'll look like a supermodel after a month.
For the "less gullible" there's the paying for the gym for the newest exercise style. Aerobics, step, spinning, pilates, insanity... you name it. Spend a small fortune at a reputable gym for inscription (and be subjected to the well known arbitrary and unexpected raises in the inscription ever so often, or changes in the rules), and then spend another small fortune on all sorts of clothes and accesories. In the meanwhile, since they are paying for the gym, they keep stuffing their faces at McDonald's (maybe going healthier by taking off the upper half of the bun, so they consume less calories - really, I've seen that), and avoid any physical activity. Won't take the stairs, won't walk, and to move around the office would resource to roll around with their chairs. But they are getting thinner - yeah, thinner in the wallet!
The same often happens also with language learning, getting a Post Grade title or further education. It's all about the paper or the extra line they can add to their curriculum. Paying the inscription to the Alliance Française isn't enough to learn French, and pushing your mug into class isn't enough either: you have to be there, body AND mind and work it. German isn't a difficult language (says who hasn't gotten around to learn it properly, but yes, it isn't), but if you just pay the classes, buy the books and spend the whole class playing with your phone, or outside the class making calls, then there's no chance you'll get to learn it. However the market caters for these too, offering all sorts of classes for all kinds of budgets where you don't really have to know, you just have to pay, go to some classes, put up the pretense and get a paper by the end that states that you have acquired a medium level knowledge of Italian, though the only thing you can say is "ciao". Sure, smack it on your curriculum, and then hope nobody would ever demands you to put it to practice.
The world, or at least here in Costa Rica, Masters' Degrees grow on threes. They are expensive - usually start around $7000 - but once you are past the payment, it's a piece of cake. They make your life hard with all sorts of projects that consume your time, but normally no real thinking is required. Many of them are specifically designed so that your secretary can make the whole job for yourself. Thus we end up with loads of MBA's who can't even explain what on Earth is a Demand Curve, and are pretty much certain it has to do with a lawsuit.
Money is spent in buckets for fictitious results and fake achievements. In neither case can any real result be shown, other than the flushing of the money on something far more stupid that getting drunk or wasted on drugs. Are we paying money only to give substance to the lies we plan on saying in the future? "Oh, I speak English because I went to this and that Language Academy", "I'm qualified to this position because I have a degree on this and that from this and that", "I know everything about fitness because I have a subscription to this fasionable health center". Wouldn't it just be better to do it for real? If you won't climb stairs, how do you expect to actually make it at a gym? And if you make it, but you still won't climb the stairs, then what the hell are you really doing? Or is it that you are not willing to move your lard unless it costs you a fortune?
Sure, learning a language or further learning something hardly goes without some investment, but if you already make that effort, why not taking it seriously? Decided to learn Spanish? Well, aside from paying the classes at the Cervantes Institute, and buying the text books, listen to some music, watch some movies - even if they are subtitled - get the language around you. You don't understand it yet? Don't worry, if you are serious about it, you will eventually get it, and in the meanwhile, let the words sit on your ear.
This whole paying for nothing real is much like trying to bring Second Life to ...well, First Life. How's paying for something you are not taking seriously and you'll never really achieve any different from buying an avatar new shoes with real money? While in real life, we should strive for real results, otherwise we'll end up living an unsatisfying life where everything loses meaning.
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