This is the greatest time in human history.
Your brain doesn’t tell you that though, does it?
We’re told the world is a dark and dangerous place, and sometimes it’s difficult to find the evidence to dispute that.
Climate change, inflation, house prices out of control, devastating natural disasters always around the corner, political instability, impending war – all things that keep us locked into the bleak reality of life.
But you might be surprised (just like I was) to know that the world is improving in almost every metric.
By like… a lot.
Almost Everything Is Better
“Slow and steady progress doesn’t get reported, but that’s how the world really improves.”
Hans Rosling
Progress is happening, we just never really notice it.
People now live longer, are better educated and have far greater access to essentials.
This isn’t opinion, this is fact.
The following stats are taken from Our World in Data:
The global average life expectancy was approximately 56 years in 1970, by 2019 it had risen to over 72 years.
In 1970, about 14% of children died before their fifth birthday, by 2019, this rate had declined to 3.9%.
Global literacy rates have risen from 63% in 1970 to 86% in 2015.
The proportion of people living in extreme poverty declined from 42% in 1981 to 10% in 2015.
The percentage of the global population with access to electricity rose from 49% in 1970 to 89% in 2016.
Undernourishment globally decreased from 28.8% in 1970 to 8.9% in 2017.
No matter which statistic you choose to measure, over the past few decades, you can almost always be assured that humans are now better off.
But here’s the thing…
We can acknowledge these stats.
We can even appreciate them.
But they really don’t change how you and I feel.
The Problem With First-World Problems
Minor inconveniences feel big in the absence of major struggles.
Read that again.
That’s a blessing, and a curse.
Before I go further, I want to acknowledge how privileged I am to live the life I live and have the things I have – and I’m sure you feel the same way.
Our problems literally stem from the absence of major struggles and that, in itself, is a blessing.
There’s no denying, however, that first-world problems are real.
First-world problems exist because we compare ourselves to those around us, not to people in worse situations – this is the concept of relative deprivation.
So, although global poverty is declining, life expectancy is rising, and technological advancements are improving lives everywhere, small inconveniences in our own lives still take precedent.
In the absence of true struggles, our brains are wired to latch onto anything that feels like an inconvenience, no matter how trivial it may seem in the grand scheme of things.
Here are some things I’ve complained about (or have p*ssed me off) this week:
Having to use my garage remote twice (one for the lift and one for the garage door) whilst holding all of my work stuff.
My steak not fully defrosting by the time I wanted to cook it.
The weather being too hot.
The weather being too cold.
My fan making a ticking noise.
My washing machine smelling a bit.
Those were my challenges this week.
Although we never like to admit it, and often feel guilty for doing so, these absolutely ridiculous ‘problems’ have a bigger impact on our lives than global issues we know we should care about.
In simpler terms, first-world problems exist because we’ve got our own stuff to worry about – no matter how trivial that stuff may seem.
And believe it or not, as our lives improve, this only gets worse.
This is where hedonic adaptation comes in.
It’s the psychological tendency for people to return to a stable level of happiness after experiencing positive or negative changes in life.
So, even as our lives (and the world in general) get objectively better, we don’t necessarily feel any happier.
Instead, we adapt to each new improvement and keep searching for the next fix, never fully satisfied with what we have.
And that, my friends, is life as we know it.
So Yeah, Why Are We So Unhappy?
So back to the title of this article… if the world is better, why are we so unhappy?
I think there are so many ways to answer this question, many of which I’ve touched on before.
But to sum it up, I think the further we advance beyond our basic survival needs, the further away we get from the things that actually fulfil us.
See, whilst it’s wonderful to know the world has improved in all the ways I listed above, that is a life that you and I can’t relate to.
Improvement in the developing world is something that can be seen, felt, and measured in tangible ways – that’s real, life-changing improvement.
But improvement in the first-world is mostly subjective.
This is a byproduct of living in a world where our basic needs are far exceeded and luxury is common.
I’ve used this quote more than once on this blog, but it just fits so perfectly.
“We don’t need accomplishments to feel good or to be good enough. What do we need? The truth: not much! Some food and water. Work that we can challenge ourselves with. A calm mind in the midst of adversity. Sleep. A solid routine. A cause we are committed to. Something we’re getting better at. Everything else is extra. Or worse, as history has shown countless times, the source of our painful downfall.”
Ryan Holiday – Discipline is Destiny
That quote changed my life when I first came across it, and I think part of it answers the title of this article.
“Everything else is extra. Or worse, as history has shown countless times, the source of our painful downfall.”
Extra is what fills our modern lives.
Extra is the constant noise, the scrolling, the consumption, the junk food.
In the first-world, scarcity is no longer the issue – it’s abundance.
And until we learn to embrace scarcity, boredom, stillness and silence, I genuinely don’t think happiness is something we can just expect to have.
Because modernity and ‘progress’ in the first-world is making that near impossible.
