The overdone society
In the middle of the nursing home room was a single glass case. Each of the facility’s rooms had one. And each resident filled it how they wanted.
My grandmother’s held pictures and assorted odds and ends. Things that mattered from various times and places of a nearly nine-decade-long life.
But that was it. A bed, a chair, a TV, art/pictures on the walls, and a glass display case with a few precious possessions.
Life may feel exceptionally large, but by the end, it gets small.
Despite this inescapable reality, we are living in a time of undeniable excess.
The NY Post profiled recently a series of young inheritors who had essentially unlimited allowances. “I never hear, ‘No,’ said [one inheritor], who claims to drop between $500,000 to $900,000 on exotic getaways each month.”
But this mentality is far more pervasive than just a couple of heirs and heiresses.
It’s more of everything, all the time, everywhere.
Here are a few more examples.
Kids’ sports - The Wildest Fashion Show in Sports Is…Little League?
Weddings - To All My Friends, This Is My Bridesmaid Resignation Letter. Friends being unable to afford all the activities and requirements around weddings.
Getting into college - NYT - Your Kid Got Into College. Does She Need a ‘Bed Party’? Parents spending thousands to fill a high school senior’s bed with merchandise to capture that perfect Insta shot.
Moving into the dorm - Designer Dorm Rooms Are All the Rage—and May Cost More Than College Tuition. Dozens of families pay … as much as $10,000 to give their kids a magazine-worthy room.
Sorority rush - Parents Hire $4,000 Sorority Consultants to Help Daughters Dress and Impress During Rush
Over-done, over-wrought, and over-baked.
We’ve created a world beyond our wildest dreams, but is it making us happy? In the wealthiest society in all of recorded history, rather than rest after winning the economic game, we have simply created the next round of competition.
But being driven by status-seeking, affirmation-seeking and one-upmanship, is far worse. We’ve traded the fatigue of reaching for economic security for a place of perpetual insecurity, constantly wondering if we are doing it right and being recognized for it?
Our brains have been rewired to be dopamine dominated. Dopamine is about anticipation, not pleasure. And we get dopamine hits when actual reality exceeds our expectations of it.
And so, we continue to have to exceed our expectations. They post well on socials - they get likes/respect/envy/admiration. But do they actually make our lives better? Are they making us better people?
The Stoics were cautious about the limits of wealth and what it can buy. As one commentator noted, “Unless she is careful, enjoyment of her wealth can undermine her character and her capacity to enjoy.”
At this point in human history, there is an agreed-upon consensus of the things that accord with human delight - family, time in nature, relationships with others. This is supported by centuries of human reflection, but increasingly through psychological research as well. Even more so, boredom, restlessness, and repetition are as much part of being human as novelty, joy, and stimulation.
But a style of living that requires greater levels of dopamine risks rendering the truest joys of life less attractive. Excessive “every-thingness” is just a less stigmatized form of addiction.
The real question here is - what do you do with excess?
Recent data has shown that about a third of the US population now sits in the “upper middle class.” While this can mean many things, quite simply, it means that ~100 million people have the great gift of a lot of choices.
The fact that so many have this flexibility is unique in human history. But our default approach to the question is not working. We have backed our way into one possible way to navigate this reality, without much conscious thought.
Has the pursuit of the newest, the best, the most, robbed us of the chance to encounter beauty? Has the pursuit of documentable moments robbed us of presence within one another in community?
The question then is how do we shift our orientation from chasing ever-increasing expectations to the pursuit of things that matter.
It will require asking the question of whether you should do something, not whether you can. And moreover, it will likely require deeper consideration of what truly accords with a flourishing life.