Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy. This is your daily message from Chad number 581 and this message is dedicated to the effervenient Jeremiah Gregory.
When it gets cold outside our filtered water dispenser freezes up, forcing me to drink tap water. The gasket on the shower handle broke, so we had to use the shower in another bathroom. The app on my phone froze. I had to shut it off and reboot it several times. Why am I recounting these inconveniences? These are the first-world problems that often drain the joy out of your day. I imagine you could quickly think of several frustrating hiccups that you had to navigate recently.
Do you want a hack for turning off the gripes and turning on the serenity. Well, here it is. Imagine if when a modern inconvenience arose you had a button you could push that would immediately zap you into the past 1000 years. Okay, you probably can’t even imagine what life was life 1000 years ago. How about 200 years ago?
Going back to the scenarios I shared. The water dispenser froze? If I said that to someone 200 years ago they would ask how I had water coming into the house. The shower broke? What’s a shower? I would have to explain what bathrooms are. The program on the phone not working? It would be impossible to explain what that was. 200 years ago a person would think I’m describing sorcery and magic.
This line of thinking is a tool William B. Irvine suggests in his book “Guide to the Good Life”. Irvine says it’s easy to take things for granted. When we take things for granted it drains us of joy. The hack is to turn your complaints into contemplation.
He says: “We will quickly discover that we are living in what to them would have been a dream world—that we tend to take for granted things that our ancestors had to live without, including antibiotics, air conditioning, toilet paper (!), cell phones, television, windows, eyeglasses, and fresh fruit in January. Upon coming to this realization, we can breathe a sigh of relief that we aren’t our ancestors, the way our descendants will presumably someday breathe a sigh of relief that they aren’t us!”
In 2008 the comedian Louis CK was on Conan. In this bit he pokes fun at how people complain, even though we live in amazing times. He says “Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy.” He tells the story of being on an airplane with high-speed internet and it stops working. The guy next to him starts complaining, completely ignoring the miracle of flying through the air, let alone having access to all the information of human civilization. He mocks this by saying, “You’re sitting in a chair in the sky. You’re like a Greek myth right now.” I can’t do his bit justice so do a search for it and watch it.
If you run into a problem or inconvenience today push the “way-back” button in your imagination. Turn your complaint into contemplation. Think of your great-great-great-grandparents and be glad (!) you’re dealing with your first-world problems. You are living in a dream world compared to them.
