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More!
My one-and-half-year-old clearly belongs to the human species: he always wants more. Every time he is eating, be it a slice of bread or a nice, crusty cookie, he is already thinking about the next one.
While my wife and I try to teach the little kid to enjoy the one he is stuffing in his mouth, saying that he cannot even get a good taste out of the food if he only keeps wanting more. At the same time, I can’t help but smile as the way he acts feels so close to the way we grown ups act as well.
At my son’s age, it’s still sweet. But for someone my age, the best word to describe the behavior is greed.
- When I go grocery shopping, I don’t just pick up the necesities and head home. I want more.
- When I have been using a new computer for a few weeks, I start longing for a more impressive one. One with more power, or more style.
- I want a Mac rather than a cheaper alternative that I could afford. And I’m sure that once I get that Mac, there is something more to long for.
- And when it comes to houses, there could always be more square feet to walk on.
The list goes on: a new car would be nice, so would be visiting some place exotic, like Dubai, or getting a new TV and Nintendo Wii that would be so much fun for the whole family.
Luckily I don’t have the money to do all the things I keep adding to my list of mores. That way there is a natural limit to the number of resources I can consume every day.
More than Enough?
Yet, even at my current run-rate, I consume way more than my share of what this planet has to offer. My carbon footprint is way bigger than it should be, and so is my waste bin.
Cutting our consumption rates is the right thing to do if we are to stop destroying our living conditions and rise the world from poverty. There is no question about this. That has become clear to pretty much everyone in the industrial world during the many years of discussion about climate warming and pollution.
We need to make sacrifices if we want to act like grown up adults.
You knew all of that already before reading any of this.
But what I find truly amazing is that the nature is not the only one hurting from our continuous want for more material goods. We too pay a toll.
To get all the goods we long for, we need more money. We have two choices: we can ask for a raise, or we can work harder.
Most of us do both, and unfortunately, neither of the options is really that good:
- When pretty much everyone gets a raise once per year, that means that prices go up and we end up with the same buying power as before the raise.
- And when we always work harder, we don’t have any time or energy to enjoy the things we get with the money we make, not to mention the best things in life that are free.
Because others in our communities are buying more things, we need to do the same. When our neighbours buy huge bombs for New Year’s celebrations, we feel the urge to get something even bigger. Something that will show that we do belong to this group of neighbours.
And when other web developers buy bigger monitors, we need to get something like that as well.
Luckily, in the same way, a community — both on and off the line — has the power to make a positive change. I hope 2009 will be a year when that kind of global, grassroot level activity takes off and sets new standards for living. Things will not change overnight, but we need to start from somewhere.
And if there is a good time for starting over, it’s now, in the middle of a depression. Things are changing anyway, so we must make sure they change for better.
By focusing on enough instead of more, sharing instead of competition, and maximizing happiness rather than profits, we can start to change what it means to be human. Little by little.
Now, let’s dream up the ways we will make it happen!
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Hi Jarkko – Happy New Year to you and your family!
“By focusing on enough instead of more….” Perfect and amazingly well said! You have just given me my mission as we head into 2009. :)
Isn’t it amazing that money has little correlation with happiness?
Check out this great TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html
Even if you could get what you’d want – you would still want more.
We would all be happier if we could feel we had enough. In fact if we focus on the special things we do have – like our kids – then maybe we’d realize those material things are so much less important.
@mark_hayward: Thanks, and happy new year to you as well!
It’s going to be hard, but I’ve decided to try to make that my mission for the year as well. It’s funny how although we have all the keys for solving a big part of our problems, we are still so hesitant to get started…
But I guess it’s the same in all areas in life :)
Now, my battery is running out, talk to you later!
@David: Great video, thanks!
Lately I’ve been hearing the idea that you need ten years of experience everywhere I go. It’s humbling, as it means that indeed, you need to focus if you want to get to the state of flow, and enjoy life to its fullest.
And you’re right, that bigger TV or all the material things we want, won’t get us there. At least, Csikszentmihalyi is saying that it will just lead us to apathy :)
Great post Jarkko, and despite my greedy, capitalist to the bone soul, I do think that 2009 is going to be one the the first years when people start really looking at making other people’s lives better, instead of just cluttering up their own with possessions. We are (I hope) going to see some amazing advances in social networking taken offline and given real-life practical uses in a global way. And as a father myself, I’m seeing how working 14 hour days every day and buying a new truck isn’t going to replace an extra 2 hours with my kids at night. I’m resolving to focus on improving my process and working half as hard for twice the results in 2009!
@J: You know what, I think I’m seeing that happen too. It’s almost magical to go to Twitter and see people dream of change, build projects that will make the world a better place, and think about more than just themselves.
There is still a long way to go (and a lot of work for us to do) before this movement will touch the lives of most of the people. But I think we can get there (just wait for my next post for more of my thoughts on the topic ;))
Let’s keep striving for that two hours instead of the new truck — and changing the world so that in a while everyone will see it that way!
He who knows enough is enough will always have enough — Lao Tzu ;^)
@donna: Well said!
Enough is always just a little more. The sad part of it is that our whole economic system seems to be based on that: constant growth. If everything doesn’t grow fast enough (it’s not just growth, but *more* growth than last year), then it’s considered a failure. I’ve been fighting against this for years now: why does our company have to grow when we’re already profitable? Why do we have to increase our sales when we a making a good living as is?
It’s not possible to have growth forever. There are limits to how much people can consume. In my mind, the closer we get to that limit, the more miserable we get, because it takes more and more effort to be able to grow – more effort to find a “need” to consume more, and more effort to fill that need, and it offers less gratification because somewhere deep inside we know it’s superficial.
That iPod for example? We all know we don’t need it, deep inside. That’s why getting it will not bring as much gratification as we would like it to bring. We’ve just been programmed by the society (which btw is us, ourselves, so blaming society is blaming ourselves) to want more things at all costs.
Me, I don’t have an iPod, or iPhone, and my laptop is 3,5 years old and I’m planning on running for at least another year. I have a cheap, old phone. My company would buy these for me if I wanted, but I’m “stickin’ it out” for as long as they last. Not that I don’t want new things, but I try to actively de-program myself.
I’m trying to learn that by wanting what I have, I will get everything I want.
@Antti: Great comment.
I’m still dreaming of getting myself a Mac so I still have a lot of learning to do… But I’ll keep trying.