achieve

Achieve: A Global Tour of the Impossible Dream, Now 30 % Off
By Our Correspondent, Somewhere between Terminal 3 and Existential Dread

“Achieve,” the travel brochure promises, is a quaint village reachable by anyone with grit, Wi-Fi, and a premium LinkedIn subscription. In reality it’s more of a floating island—today moored off the coast of Singapore, tomorrow drifting toward Dubai, occasionally glimpsed from the window of a Gulfstream G650. The rest of us watch it recede like a mirage while we clutch our economy boarding passes and hope the seat-back screen doesn’t crash before the in-flight movie ends.

The word itself has become the Esperanto of late-capitalist aspiration. From Lagos co-working spaces to Seoul cram-schools, humans chant it like a spell: achieve, achieve, achieve. Children in Mumbai memorize multiplication tables under the promise that 98 percent equals admission, which equals achievement, which equals the right to spend their thirties repaying a mortgage slightly smaller than Connecticut. Meanwhile, Scandinavian toddlers learn mindfulness so they can achieve work-life balance by age six, a charming delusion that lasts until Spotify lays them off in the next quarterly “streamlining.”

In the West, achievement has been gamified. Download the app, watch your daily steps turn into coins, your coins into coupons, your coupons into a 10 % discount on a treadmill you’ll use twice. Silicon Valley’s greatest trick was convincing the planet that a dopamine pellet dispensed by a phone is the same thing as meaning. The French, naturally, call this “le bullshit,” but even they have quietly installed meditation pods in the Elysée Palace so the ruling class can achieve inner peace between pension-reform riots.

Travel east and the metrics mutate. In China, achievement is measured in square meters of Shenzhen real estate and the precise hour your child solves calculus. Whole provinces now run on the fumes of filial piety and standardized-test answer keys. When the government noticed everyone was cracking, it introduced the “double reduction” policy—less homework, more nap time—then watched private tutors pivot overnight from forbidden educators to underground life-coaches selling midnight sessions behind noodle shops. Nothing says “we care” like state-mandated chill.

Africa, ever the continent investors forget until they need cobalt, has its own version of the hustle. Young Nigerians mint NFTs of Lagos traffic jams; Kenyan coders build fintech apps on the same street where goats outnumber stoplights. Achievement here is often a relay race: first generation escapes the village, second generation secures the mortgage, third generation finally has the luxury to wonder why any of it mattered. The diaspora wires dollars home with notes that read, “Invest in land,” because nothing says success like owning dirt someone else might someday want.

Latin America turns achievement into carnivalesque irony. Brazilians joke that their GDP stands for “Gym, Diet, Pilates,” the holy trinity required for an Instagrammable backside—because even the literal rear end must now be optimized. In Argentina, where inflation runs faster than the buses, citizens achieve by spending pesos before they evaporate, an economic version of hot potato that doubles as cardio.

And then there are the places achievement simply won’t land. War zones, failed states, climate-ravaged archipelagos—here the word sounds like a cruel joke whispered over dwindling water rations. Still, enterprising NGOs parachute in with entrepreneurship workshops titled “Disrupt Your Refugee Camp,” proving that even the apocalypse has a startup pitch deck.

Global summits convene to discuss Sustainable Development Goals, carbon neutrality, gender parity—noble targets that arrive on private jets powered by the same kerosene they vow to abolish. Delegates achieve consensus, photograph the handshake, then jet home to explain why growth must, alas, continue. The final communiqué is printed on recycled paper no one reads.

So what, dear Dave’s Locker reader, is the worldly takeaway? Perhaps that “achieve” is less a destination than a border checkpoint where passports are stamped by whoever owns the algorithm this week. The trick isn’t to reach the island; it’s to notice when the ferry starts taking on water and decide whether to keep bailing or learn to swim. Either way, bring snacks—achievement, like everything else, is catered by the lowest bidder.