Human — The Ultimate Resource

From the story of “Easter Island” that still relevant now

I always believed and captivated by human potential. I know there’s a terminology, human capital, that explain human power and capability that could turns into capital like any asset of business. Through my extended period of education, I was exposed to “The Ultimate Resource” by Jay Forrester. I remember very clear that I was listening to my lecturer that listen very eloquently about a story of Easter Island. That day, we are in a class of Economics, discussing about how does economic activity like consuming has a potential to destroy ecosystem.

Then my Great Lecturer began to tell a story — in a very compelling story-telling kindda way. I can’t remember precisely what he share on that day but I believe he told pretty much like this :

Once upon a time, there was an island, called an Easter Island. That was an isolated island where there are population over there and people consuming the plant on that island without doing any rehabilitation. The consumption keep going until one day, there’s only one tree left. There’s only one resource left to be consumed to survive. However, the island was inhabit by more than one person or family, hence they need to make decision. Otherwise, famine would struck and population would extinct. Fast-forward up until a modern-day, that island was empty. No population, so the hypothesis would be :

Hypothesis 1 : The people was extincted because of famine, because no resource left for them to survive. The last tree was cut-down and they consumed it and that’s it.

However, research showed there’s no indication that there’s a human buried there. Then the theory changed, people over there left the island. Even in a very long time ago when there was no internet and not a lot access of information — not enough resources! Those population can survived. It leads us into new hypothesis that

Hypothesis 2: The last tree was cut-down but they’re not consumed it, they used it to made a boat and moved to another place. They learnt how to survive. They are the ultimate resource.

Those story was really stick to my head that my thought over human potential was not a wishy-washy, it’s true — backed-up by science. Something inside me flared-up when I know that story. That was one of classes that’s really precious to me. I carry that lesson to my every day life and that class become my affirmation on my belief.

A lesson that taught us we can’t let undermine human potential and as a human, we can’t shut-down and lose our faith on our-own ability to survive and grow.