Finding Meaning in Our Never Enough Culture

What all of these examples have in common is that the former require less activation energy, feel good immediately, and feel crappy later on. The latter require more work up front, feel not so great immediately, and feel wonderful later on.

Fortunately, the brain is good at learning. Once we start to shift more of our time and energy toward brown rice and potato activities, especially if we can make it through the first month or so, we start to feel pretty good.

This is compounded by the fact that western economies are set up for short-term profits not long-term fulfillment. As a result, we are bombarded with products, services, and marketing aimed directly at the part of our brains that crave immediate-reward products, services, and experiences.

For over 99 percent of our species’ history we lived amidst scarcity. Thus you, dear reader, like me and everyone else, evolved to seek out high-reward, low-energy-needed-to-acquire goods. This strategy worked well for hundreds of thousands of years. But now, in modern times of abundance, it is backfiring. Like so many things, what works, works—unt... See more

Just as doing shallow and superficial activities can create a vicious cycle, doing deep and meaningful activities can create a virtuous one.

Here are just a few examples of the brown rice and potatoes versus peanut M&Ms and Swedish fish tradeoff that most people face every day: junk food vs. nourishing food; deep-focus work vs. distraction; scrolling social media vs. reading a book; porn vs. intimate relationships; retweets and likes vs. building a deep community; heavy drinking vs.... See more