1.
In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that, within the next 100 years, technology would advance economic productivity so much that people would barely have to work anymore. Instead, they would face another problem: how to use their freedom to occupy their leisure.
He suggested, “Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while.”
A century is approaching, but Keynes’s utopian prediction has yet to pan out. Even though the global economy has multiplied tenfold over the past few decades, work hours have remained mostly the same, and definitely more than 15 hours a week. I’m still waiting for the “excessive leisure” that Keynes promised.
Why aren’t we working significantly fewer hours with all the productivity gain?
Is it income inequality, uneven resource distribution, or the simple reason some prefer to work for the purpose and meaning it brings?
All of the above play a role, but I think another main reason is that Keynes underestimated the power of a critical factor: expectations. What used to be acceptable in the 1930s is no longer the case in the twenty-first century. When expectations increase, we work harder to meet them. We produce more, but we also consume more.
The rise in expectations has driven incredible innovation and created many good. On average, people live longer, healthier, and have a higher quality of life. We have better cars, bigger houses, and the magical Internet. Most daily chores have become easier.
But the perpetual rise in expectations is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it requires more environmental resources and human costs to meet the demands. And there’s another paradox: Even though we live in a time of greater abundance than ever, we don’t necessarily feel better off. Our perception of the current state is relative to today’s expectations. But if the goalpost moves again tomorrow, even the most significant improvement can leave us feeling the same, or sometimes weirdly, worse.
2.
Whenever I ate a mango growing up, my dad would inevitably point out how fortunate I was to enjoy a whole mango by myself. Back in the day, he shared a mango with at least three of his seven siblings. He often fought for the pit since he liked to chew on it to enjoy the juice.
He would also predictably talk about eating rice with lard or soy sauce for dinner when money was sometimes tight.
“Kids have it so good these days. They have no idea!” he said.
I pretended to understand and offered him my mango pit.
3.
Sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville once observed people’s expectations tend to increase faster than the rise in their living standards. As society’s condition improves, people also become more aware of all the things that haven’t improved. What remains imperfect leads to more frustration.
“When all conditions are unequal, no inequality is so great as to offend the eye,” he wrote, “Whereas the slightest dissimilarity is odious in the midst of general uniformity.”
One way we see Tocqueville’s perspective in modern life is this: If we are used to Amazon’s same-day delivery for everything we need in one order, we become more attuned to all other companies’ inefficiencies. If the competitors can’t match the expectations, they instantly look less attractive.
Columbia Law professor Tim Wu once wrote a brilliant essay on how our increased expectation of convenience has become a hidden but powerful force shaping our daily choices. “Convenience has the ability to make other options unthinkable,” Wu wrote. “Created to free us, it can become a constraint on what we are willing to do, and thus in a subtle way it can enslave us.”
4.
The human body is a fascinating machine.
When a body’s temperature rises, it sweats to cool down. If the bloodstream has too much glucose, the body releases insulin to regulate the sugar level. If the body is overworked, it makes us yawn and go to sleep.
Biologists call this mechanism homeostasis. It’s an incredibly complicated set of processes that the body uses to maintain physical and chemical equilibrium, and it does all this automatically.
The mind works in a similar way: it seeks to revert the level to neutral whenever we are over-stimulated or under-stimulated.
Once, I was at a trash processing facility. It smelled terrible at first, but after half an hour, I stopped noticing it. The brain reduces its sensitivity, so disgust becomes less pronounced.
This effect also applies to positive experiences like pleasure. A new car or a great view at a hotel feels amazing on the first day, but it normalizes after a while. Through mere exposure over time, the brain resets the baseline and raises the bar. The initial excitement fades.
As historian C. Northcote Parkinson puts it, “A luxury, once enjoyed, becomes a necessity,”
5.
I often share a lane with another person at my local public swimming pool. We would stay within our half of the lane in parallel without interfering with each other. I usually swim at a pretty relaxed pace.
The pool was packed last Sunday. I had to swim in circles with two other people in the lane for the first time.
The dynamic completely changes. Expectations rise all of a sudden.
Whenever I hit one end of the pool and turn around, I ask: How much space do I have left with the swimmer behind me? Am I too slow? Should I go faster?
My pace relative to other swimmers is now apparent. I find myself speeding up because I compare. Swimming harder gives me a better workout, but there’s also more pressure.
Of course, if my fellow swimmers are too fast, I can switch to another lane or let them pass. But the comparison happens instinctively before the conscious brain even registers it. Judging myself versus the people around us is automatic. It takes attention to become aware of it.
6.
A core idea in Einstein’s theory of relativity is that measurements of time, space, and even gravity are not absolute but depend on the observer’s speed and motion.
Human psychology is similar: expectations shape our mental frame of reference. Our perception of the world is often a function of what we experience relative to what we expect. If we feel dissatisfied, we have two variables to play with: We can strive to improve our condition and adjust our expectations.
Inspirations for this post:
- Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes
- The Tyranny of Convenience, Tim Wu (NYT Op-ed)
- Homeostasis, Wikipedia
- Tocqueville effect, Wikipedia