I find that we humans are increasingly complaining more and more about pretty much everything. My computer doesn't do this.....my phone sucks at that....or something along the lines of - what I really need is a laptop that can transform into a jet pack and transport me to the moon if I so wished.....and instantly get me some ice cream too! Why the hell wont my laptop do this NOW??! You get the idea...
I am guilty of this too but now that I am self aware, I'm making a very conscious effort to try and keep my complaining about what more I need to a minimum. We live in the age of instant gratification. Everything is a click away and there are infinite choices for pretty much any product. Consumers today feel more entitled than ever before. Companies naturally exploit that to the max. I don't blame them at all though, that's business for you, you have to make money somehow. Today's market is a million times more competitive than before and it only keeps getting worse with rampant consumerism. It's a chicken and egg thing after all. There's nothing right or wrong about it but it's tiring, very tiring when you take a step back and observe it from outside the circle.
Whatever happened to contentment? I understand there's a fine line between contentment and inaction. I once read a fortune cookie which made a lot of sense to me - "Discontentment is the first step in the progress of man". Of course, progress as we have come to define it. Given that we've evolved these huge ass brains, we just cannot say this is good enough forever with everything. We would die of boredom. I get that. But sometimes it really IS enough. Every once in a while it's good to draw a line and say, "I'm happy", then sit back and enjoy a cup of tea and watch the sun go down.
5 comments:
We live in an extremely tech circle. In the circle, analyzing, criticizing and comparing gizmos is food for the engineer brain, rather than a serious contentment issue. For e.g., I couldn't care less if I didn't have my phone or my laptop (I forget them somewhere half the time anyways :-)), but I sure get a kick out of being a critic of them. I think this is the case with most tech people I know too, but may be I am wrong... Though, I can't imagine someone losing happiness or sleep over a gadget.
I also think when it comes to ideas and quality, contentment is a wrong ideal. :-)
I was suddenly reminded of something- a few days back someone said on FB "I don't wanna know whose idea Win 7 was, but I wanna know whose idea Vista was", and someone commented on that saying "I think his last name sounds like balls".
- so yeah, I can imagine someone like you reading a million such things and getting tired, I get it... :-)
Agree about living in a tech circle. But the constant analyzing, criticizing, comparing, ideas and bar raising is also happening on other circles I frequent. Everybody needs the brain food and intellectual stimulation. The difference though is extreme negativity vs. analysis. I think tech people feel a lot more entitled to complain these days - relates to being big time consumers I suppose. They're not always idea oriented or rational comments. Often times it's complaining for the heck of it. Dig deeper and there's not much rationale. That's when it gets annoying. I think contentment can be friends with ideas and quality. :)
I wasn't implying that everybody doesn't need brain food, and I don't see how anything I said would suggest that. :-) Tech talk is brain food for engineers, as is weather patterns and climate changes for meteorologists, etc, is what I meant.
As I think about it, I think the debate stems largely from viewing the matter from a purely consumer perspective (which this post does), vs from the other side of the table (where I come from). Anyway, too much to type. May be we'll talk about it sometime. :-)
And yes, contentment on ideas and quality is perfectly reasonable "for a consumer", but not so good for the builder of a product. And let's acknowledge that most of the time a product doesn't reach it's full potential because of realities of the project - timeline, resources, etc. That's the reason the cycle continues... Again, two different angles.
And lastly, this made me laugh: ""Discontentment is the first step in the progress of man in bed."
Oh! Sorry I wasn't implying that you said that but making a comparison that while that happens in other circles too, it feels a lot more negative in the tech circles. But I agree that it's not an apples to apples comparison. I was definitely coming at it from a more consumerist perspective and frankly, I think I'm just a little tired of hearing/seeing the same conversations over and over again. I am recognizing the patterns. ;)
Yea, definitely too much typing and explaining, it was easier when I was arguing with Ashwin in person. :)
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