Governments should focus on solving the immediate problems of today rather than on trying to solve the anticipated problems of the future.

Governments should focus on solving the immediate problems of today rather than on trying to solve the anticipated problems of the future.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position.

Surely, solving immediate problems seems to be a preferred choice compared to that of tomorrow. For example, economic collapse was a big issue in 2007-2009, burst from US financial market and finally impacted almost all industries in and out of US, and countries in Brazil, Japan, China, etc. Nevertheless, the economy wouldn’t solely bring such problem to the US government, but the negative effect on unemployment rates, international trade, and state debt that made government officials worry about the immediate problem may push hundreds of its middle class workers to poverty and crime, followed by nationwide protests and probable coups. Thus, we can extract from the case that it’s definitely appropriate to deal with the immediate problems at that time because it may bring about more intense negative effects. In other words, it’s because the problem was rather emergent than immediate in the eyes of US government that force them to work on a coping mechanism.

However, it isn’t always a wise move to focus on the problem we’re having today, for what’s coming up next may require more contemplation, and it would be too late to worry about it on its arrival. Just as the ancient Chinese saying goes, always prepare for a rainy day, which means we should always consider the future problem ahead of time and make sure we have a all-encompassing solution to all outcomes no matter beneficial or detrimental. Take the outburst of corona virus in China for example. At first, scientist and some government officials anticipated the wide outburst of the virus would start from Wuhan, Hubei to the rest of the world. However,  having fought against SARS in 2003, nobody took the new virus seriously especially when we’ve already won the battle against a seemingly more serious disease. As a result, the government left the problem for tomorrow, and went back to argue over minute problems, totally unaware of such a worldwide catastrophe would happen months later and thus unprepared at all. Now we’ve all witnessed the “happy ending” of the problem, together with exposure of scandals, suspicions and condemnations of Chinese government. Now see it from backwards, we have lots of question we’d like to ask the government but also the used-to-be ignorant ourselves? Why couldn’t we focus on the coming problem in advance so that we could inform the factories of more production of masks for people and doctors alike, that we could put effort into research on and development of vaccine earlier and save more patients from death, that we could close the border per foreseeing the consequences and prevent the virus from spreading overseas? In a word, why couldn’t we just focus on the anticipated problems of the future so that we can turn it into an opportunity or at least stop loss to the hilt?

Some would argue that we have tons of problems to worry about today, why bother wasting out time thinking about something in the faraway future? Firstly, I’d defend my position with that it’s not a waste of time as the lesson everyone should learn from the example above. Secondly, see it from other cases, instead of one doomed with inevitably negative influence, such as competitions with other countries in economy, armament or science and technology. All countries could anticipate there are much more intensive competitions in the future regarding countries’ life and death, as almost every country is trying to be the boss and surrender others, under the meaning of independence and territory integrity. Obviously it’s a disturbing problem of tomorrow related to every human being. Now the potential logic behind the problem is that there is no country would leave it for tomorrow and the earlier they dash to the problem, the bigger chance in which they would survive in the relentless competition. Why? Because if you wait, you’re left behind. Time is life, my friend. As we can see, in front of crucial problems such as war, national competitions, and such, we should always make preparations once we’ve anticipated its happening, regardless of how much time we can loiter about before its actual occurrence.