CUT YOUR TEETH is a daily column of open letters by Taylor Barnes on art, advertising, copywriting, business, brand, narrative, design, culture, life, and more. Whatever feeds me during the day of writing is what you’ll read. Thanks for being here.
There is nothing beautiful about complacency.
There is nothing beautiful about laziness. There is nothing beautiful about wallowing in self-pity. There is nothing beautiful about watching everyone else pursue their dreams while you drown yourself in self-inflicted woes (and lies). There is nothing beautiful about laughing at people who are actually trying, and insisting you’re superior because you didn’t have a shred of the audacity they did.
There is nothing beautiful about throwing Everything You Could Be away because you were given the excuse to do so by a random stranger on the internet that said you have every right to be angry about something you don’t actually understand.
Because it’s easier than ever now to broadcast victimhood and laziness and your bare-as-bones lack of giving a fuck, and you still wind up surprised that you’re not opening the doors you thought you would open. What a shock. What a disaster.
If you couldn’t tell, this is quite hideous, and not actually that funny at all, and to say I’m furious about the growing acceptance rate around this behavior is an understatement.
I’m angry about this strange unconscious shift towards intentional complacency because I was raised with the encouragement to pursue my dreams, no matter the cost, and to not let excuses define me—and yet, all around me, there is always at least one person who allows their misplaced hatred of society, or culture, or the government, or whatever else to direct and define their every move.
My mentors believe the same. The people I admire the most believe(d) the same. You think Michelangelo was complacent? You think he believed skipping the process of chiseling perfection out of marble and just “believing he deserved it” would’ve given him the same legacy that he has?
No. Obviously that would never happen. I could write an entire series of letters about Michelangelo alone, but he became who he was because he applied himself and he loved the work and he loved the process and nothing could’ve stopped him. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He would look at the wave of complacency today and laugh. He would be thoroughly disgusted by the lack of effort. The lack of fucking passion.
We admire the greats for being the greatest. We study them because they’re the greatest. It’s the same with scientists. Engineers. Builders. Entrepreneurs. Thinkers. Inventors. Makers. Artists. Athletes.
For some reason, though, we have recently chosen a narrative of laziness, complacency as a verb—now that’s a joke if I’ve ever read one, and I’m no comedian—and it’s brainwashed countless young people into believing they’re entitled to things just because of who they are. Their lack of effort is a poison supported by their equally lazy and chronically depressed peers, and it shows. The leaks are obvious.
If that’s you, let me be frank, because the only kind way to approach this is to be clear:
You’ve been told you shouldn’t have to work by people who hate work, and insist you should be damned if you do love work. (This is worse if you actually want to be rich; wealth does not inherently equal villainy, and being poor does not automatically make you virtuous). You’ve been told to accept the bare minimum by people who would rather see everyone fail—including themselves—then allow themselves the chance to get rich. You’ve been told to not even try, because why should you when you’re apparently “owed” a debt by “the system?”
You might think I’m getting political out of nowhere, but if you do think that, I need to push you to think about this deeper—because this is exactly what complacency comes from.
Complacency, in my unprofessional opinion, is born from insecurity, and this only becomes worse when it’s encouraged and logirifed on a mass scale. Yes, you could say ChatGPT and Claude and their Big Daddies are responsible for the electric current of complacency, handholding, and perpetual self-deluded victimhood. But, I would argue that you always have a choice, and bending the knee to the Musks and Zuckerberg’s and Altman’s of the world will never, ever do you any favors.
The acceptance of complacency is the rejection of potential.
You will never find the next Steve Jobs twiddling his thumbs and mumbling about the world and how “everyone’s against him” and how he’s somehow the only special person on the planet who would rather be complacent, point fingers, blame your problems on growing global juggernauts like every AI company on the planet, get angry at the success of others while you do nothing on your couch, etc. and etc.
The people who will change the world are never going to worship complacency.
If you don’t want to be complacent, don’t ever lose that. This is becoming a remarkable thing, to actually give a fuck about what you do, to actually strive to be the best you can be, to actually make something out of yourself that lives long after you’re gone. This is, sadly, one of the ugliest things to happen to humanity, and our growing acceptance of it—the normalization, the glorification, the glamorization and all the descriptors you could possibly need (pull out a damn thesaurus if you must)—will only get worse.
While everyone else is racing to the bottom and trying to drag you down with them, be the first person to say “no, I actually care, and I’m going to give a damn about myself.”
If your friends want to waste their lives and squander their potential and pretend the world is against them, let them. Let them do what they want to do.
But you must have courage to defy that, and choose to act.
Reject complacency and you choose beauty.
Have conviction. Have passion. Have ambition.
Accept complacency and you choose The Curse of Eternal Ugliness.
Choose wisely.
— Taylor Barnes