We live in an age dom­i­nat­ed by in­stant grat­i­fi­ca­tion—where the swipe of a screen or the click of a but­ton promis­es im­me­di­ate re­ward. Many young peo­ple to­day grow up be­liev­ing that life should be smooth, ef­fort­less, and free of set­backs. I’ve spo­ken with sev­er­al who, when faced with dif­fi­cul­ty—whether in a job, a course of study, or a re­la­tion­ship—sim­ply walk away. The idea of per­se­ver­ance, of push­ing through dis­com­fort and sac­ri­fice, seems for­eign.

In­stead, quick wins are glam­or­ised. Be­com­ing an overnight in­flu­encer, gam­bling on Bit­coin, in­vest­ing in spec­u­la­tive re­al es­tate across the globe— are all seen as short­cuts to suc­cess. But life, as we know, doesn’t work that way. It is full of ups and downs—mo­ments of joy, but al­so tri­als that re­quire grit and ma­tu­ri­ty.

And it is here that we, as adults and men­tors, have a du­ty to lead. Sad­ly, too many of us have start­ed mir­ror­ing the same reck­less pur­suit of thrill and plea­sure—chas­ing ex­cite­ment with lit­tle re­gard for con­se­quences. A Ju­ly 16 Cold­play con­cert of­fered a sober­ing ex­am­ple, as the adul­ter­ous in­dis­cre­tions of two se­nior ex­ec­u­tives from a com­pa­ny came to light.

In­fi­deli­ty isn’t new, but vi­ral ex­po­sure in­ten­si­fies the trau­ma—im­pact­ing not on­ly part­ners, but al­so chil­dren and ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly. Strangers pile on with an­gry com­ments be­fore mov­ing on to the next trend. We now live in a voyeuris­tic so­ci­ety where gos­sip spreads in sec­onds.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, in­di­vid­u­als were able to process such be­tray­al pri­vate­ly and re­veal it to oth­ers on­ly when they had the emo­tion­al strength to do so.

Sta­tis­tics from Psy­chol­o­gy Di­ary and Bonobol­o­gy re­veal that in­fi­deli­ty is dis­cov­ered 41% via phone checks, 23% via so­cial me­dia (Face­book posts and mes­sages), and 13% from PC files.

Ex­po­sure now oc­curs more fre­quent­ly through tech­nol­o­gy than through friends, fam­i­ly, or con­fes­sions.

Though many so­cial me­dia posts crit­i­cised these ex­ec­u­tives for their lack of char­ac­ter and ac­count­abil­i­ty, the min­imi­sa­tion of past scan­dals—like for­mer US Pres­i­dent Clin­ton’s af­fair—shows how po­lit­i­cal par­ti­san bias can in­flu­ence pub­lic opin­ion. It ap­pears that class bias against high-pay­ing CEOs and HR man­agers—who some­times en­force strict con­se­quences for em­ploy­ees—makes them eas­i­er tar­gets for pub­lic cru­ci­fix­ion.

At one time, we were taught that lead­er­ship with­out in­tegri­ty erodes pub­lic trust. To­day, we must con­sid­er which lead­ers still up­hold in­tegri­ty—and whether they can in­spire their teams to be more guard­ed in their pub­lic in­dul­gences. The thrill of the for­bid­den can be in­tox­i­cat­ing.

Re­gret­tably, mar­riage as a so­cial in­sti­tu­tion is be­com­ing less com­mon. Peo­ple are mar­ry­ing lat­er, un­mar­ried cou­ples are in­creas­ing­ly choos­ing to live to­geth­er, and in many coun­tries, we are see­ing a ‘de­cou­pling’ of mar­riage and par­ent­hood.

Some da­ta in­di­cate that the du­ra­tion of mar­riages be­fore di­vorce of­ten ranges be­tween sev­en and 10 years—co­in­cid­ing with the pop­u­lar con­cept of the “sev­en-year itch.”

In 2017, Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie re­port­ed that T&T had seen a de­crease in di­vorce fil­ings. How­ev­er, by 2022–2023, the trend re­versed, with di­vorces and re­lat­ed fam­i­ly law fil­ings ris­ing sharply. It is said one in every three mar­riages ends in di­vorce.

So mar­riage is in trou­ble.

There are many rea­sons why mar­riages fail in T&T:

In­fi­deli­ty

Mar­ry­ing too young

Lack of com­mit­ment

Too much ar­gu­ing and con­flict

Un­re­al­is­tic ex­pec­ta­tions

Lack of equal­i­ty

In­ad­e­quate prepa­ra­tion

Fi­nan­cial dis­agree­ments

Con­flict about do­mes­tic du­ties

Lack of fam­i­ly sup­port

Re­li­gious dif­fer­ences

Do­mes­tic vi­o­lence

Lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and feel­ing ig­nored

In to­day’s cul­ture of hy­per-con­nec­tiv­i­ty, temp­ta­tion is ac­ces­si­ble, im­me­di­ate, and of­ten en­cour­aged. Dat­ing apps, se­cret chat plat­forms, and the glam­or­i­sa­tion of af­fairs in me­dia and pop cul­ture cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment where loy­al­ty is treat­ed as op­tion­al and in­dul­gence as nor­mal.

In T&T, we dance to the ca­lyp­so A Deputy Es­sen­tial—a song that sends the mes­sage that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and char­ac­ter are op­tion­al.

Some of the caus­es of in­fi­deli­ty in­clude:

Emo­tion­al dis­sat­is­fac­tion: When needs aren’t met at home, some seek com­fort else­where.

Poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion: Small un­re­solved is­sues grow in­to large re­sent­ments.

Un­re­al­is­tic ex­pec­ta­tions: In­flu­enced by so­cial me­dia and fan­ta­sy, peo­ple of­ten ex­pect pas­sion with­out ef­fort and af­fec­tion with­out in­vest­ment.

Low im­pulse con­trol: The same in­abil­i­ty to “stick it out” seen in jobs or stud­ies is re­flect­ed in re­la­tion­ships.

Es­capism: A way to es­cape bore­dom, stress, or dis­sat­is­fac­tion with life—not nec­es­sar­i­ly the re­la­tion­ship it­self.

Ego­tis­tic be­hav­iour: If it feels good, do it. Rarely does one ask about the con­se­quences.

In­fi­deli­ty is not just about se­cret af­fairs or bro­ken vows—it’s a symp­tom of some­thing deep­er: a cul­tur­al dis­com­fort with hard­ship, sac­ri­fice, and per­son­al ac­count­abil­i­ty.

We must re­turn to the ba­sics. Suc­cess—in love, in life, in ca­reer—isn’t in­stant. It’s built slow­ly, brick by brick, over time.