BenasI didn’t grow up in a world of abundance but also not in a state of urgent need for survival…somewhere in the healthy middle, so now as an adult (somewhat 🙂 ) I can reflect on the difference in a healthy way. Traveling the world helps to understand how much you really need in order to live a happy life and how much the western world is removed from that feeling of ‘enough’. Once again, the Japanese have a healthy tradition/philosophy of eating until they are 80% full (“Hara Hachi Bu”) and not stuff themselves with food until they can’t eat because true satiation is when you have eaten enough to get through the day. I believe this is also how it should be in life with everything that we face each day.
I travel a lot….and I mean…A LOT. On business but also personally, usually in countries where there is less of a feeling of abundance but more of ‘enough’ and you can get by with less. Sure, everyone wants to have a little bit more than they have because it gives them a feeling of security, whether it’s money, food or warm shelter…but I’m pretty sure in the western world we have lost touch with all reality by now.
Everything is readily available with the press of a button, at any point, any time, anywhere….you order food via app and it gets to your doorstep. You want (need?) something really urgently, you go to Amazon and it’s practically there within 24hrs…the availability of everything makes things less appreciable. Human nature has it that you get used to things rather quickly and all of a sudden you start getting annoyed with things that used to be so far out of reach that you could only dream about it. Once you have it, you expect it to be there all the time, at the same level of quality and maybe even quicker or better than last time around. This never ends and unfortunately it ruins society to a degree where everyone who practices to live this way gets a sense of anxiety and anger when it’s all of a sudden not readily available.
How do you feel when the wifi speed is slightly off? How irritated do you get when the food gets delivered but you have to walk down the stairs instead of it being at your door? How annoyed do you get when the newest iPhone is slightly lagging in certain apps? How irritated do you get when the waiter or waitress doesn’t bring you the food exactly the way you ordered it or if it’s just takes slightly longer than usual? Boil it down to the simplest thing as rain vs sunshine. Off course it’s nicer when the sun is outside but does slight rain really ‘ruin your day’?
How much resilience do you have in you?
I believe that this comfortable and readily available lifestyle has inadvertently schooled all of us to become more impatient. It spoiled and at the same time made us more fragile and ‘soft’…’snowflakes’ for various reasons. We are not able to accept the slightest challenge when it doesn’t go as planned but find ways to be annoyed and maybe because of that even ruin our own day?! Seriously?
When you go to the supermarket, how many different brands of water do you see on the shelves?? How often do you experience ‘decision-making fatigue’ when you are trying to book a trip or book a hotel / restaurant / activity?? How many toiletpapers do you see on the shelve? You have all the options available and you always think….’what’s the perfect option here?’ ‘…i think we can do even better’.
If we are talking about human relations, I can’t write this without mentioning Tinder/Bumble or whatever dating platform where you match with multiple people and certainly you are annoyed by the slightest off-putting comment or mis-understanding and go on to the next one because the DM is full of other messages that may be 1% better….’I deserve better…’ It’ll never be enough this way, no matter what you do.
I also think that this spoiled way of living over the course of decades where things constantly get easier and faster made us less appreciative of the human being itself. Hence the dating app example but also if you go to doctors or certain services where you need personal attention but you feel like you have 15mins at most to explain your problems before a decision is made and the next patient or client is asked inside. You are sent into the abyss to deal with your own problems and become one of a million just because the service provider or doctor needs to get as many clients as possible in there within a day so he can afford his Porsche. People end up becoming just ‘a thing’ instead of human beings.
How many people actually care about other people to a degree where you can say “I really tried to help this person to the best of my abilities!” …it became a rarity. Even the human interactions have become fast but inefficient. Time is not there in abundance but we try to stuff it with everything possible so we can feel like ‘we are full’ and that we are actually ‘doing something’…’being productive’ instead of aiming for 80% fullness and probably being more happy in the process because we learn to say ‘no’ whenever we feel that we are at our limits.
Travel to places where you see people being happy with 100 times less than you have so you can learn to appreciate the things you have and understand that more is not necessarily better. Seek to have more quality relationships instead of quantity ones, more quality food instead of abundance of junk, more efficient travel instead of traveling everywhere non stop and all at once, a day that is not jam packed instead of trying to be as efficient as possible an running around to fulfill your silly goals, learn to say ‘no’ and be honest instead of saying ‘yes’ to everybody and everything and ending up over-promising and instead under-delivering to people because you try to please everyone.
I believe by being more reflective of how good we actually have it and admitting to it will be the first steps to healing our society, but you have to look in the mirror first and be humble about it when you are facing it…especially when greed comes into play and you learn to fight your own demons over and over again!