Yet something unexpected happened. Instead of endless euphoria and a collective feeling of happiness, our society is slipping into a strange state of frustration, anxiety, and existential emptiness. We often hear the phrase: “People have it so good nowadays that they no longer know what to do with themselves.” This statement, which at first glance may sound like an older generation's sigh over the spoiled nature of the younger one, harbors a deep sociological and psychological truth. Why doesn't absolute comfort and prosperity actually make us happy?
From the Struggle for Survival to the Struggle with Our Own Consciousness
To understand today's state, it is necessary to look at human evolution. For hundreds of thousands of years, the human brain was calibrated toward a single main goal: to survive. Our ancestors dealt with acute, tangible, and clearly defined threats. Where to get food so the family wouldn't starve? How to stay warm in the upcoming winter? How to defend against a hostile tribe or wild beasts? All human capacity, physical strength, and mental energy were fully occupied with solving basic life needs.
A Shift at the Top of Maslow's Hierarchy
American psychologist Abraham Maslow described the hierarchy of human needs as a pyramid. At its base lie physiological needs and the need for safety. Only above them are the needs for belonging, esteem, and at the very top, self-actualization. In the past, the vast majority of humanity spent their entire lives fighting for the bottom two levels of this pyramid.
Today's modern Westerner, however, has the lower levels of the pyramid practically guaranteed. As a result, we have moved en masse to the highest levels. While physical safety is taken care of, we find ourselves in the uncharted territory of deep psychological and existential questions. And it turns out that resolving questions like “Who am I?”, “What is my purpose?”, or “Why am I not happy enough?” is in many ways more demanding for the human psyche than finding shelter from the rain.
Hedonic Adaptation: A Trap for Human Dopamine
One of the main reasons prosperity does not fulfill us is a phenomenon known as hedonic adaptation (or the hedonic treadmill). It is a psychological mechanism through which people very quickly get used to any new, even the most wonderful life situation, and take it as the new baseline.
When you buy a new car, you feel immense joy from it for the first few days or weeks. After a few months, however, the luxury vehicle becomes just a means of transportation, and your feeling of happiness returns to its original, neutral baseline. It works the same way with hot water, smartphones, traveling abroad, or an abundance of food. All these things, which would have been a miracle to our ancestors, we perceive today as an absolute given. And as soon as something is taken for granted, it stops generating joy.
Dopamine Overload
The human brain's reward system is based on the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine drives us to seek new stimuli, explore, and achieve goals. In today's world, however, we are exposed to a constant, unlimited supply of cheap dopamine. Social media, constant phone notifications, single-click access to any movie or series, shopping from home—all of this floods our brain with dopamine without any real effort.
The result is that our receptors become desensitized. Everyday life seems boring, gray, and slow to us. Because we no longer have to exert effort to survive, we seek increasingly intense, extreme, and bizarre stimuli just to feel anything at all.
The Paradox of Choice and Paralysis by Abundance
Another accompanying phenomenon of modern times is the so-called paradox of choice, described by American psychologist Barry Schwartz. We live in the illusion that the more choices we have, the freer and happier we will be. Reality, however, is quite the opposite.
Today, we have to constantly choose:
- Which career to choose out of thousands of existing professions?
- Where to live when we can work remotely from anywhere?
- Which partner to choose from thousands of profiles on dating apps?
- Which of fifty types of yogurt to buy at the supermarket?
- Which of tens of thousands of movies to watch in the evening?
Having too many options leads to so-called decision paralysis. Instead of being glad for the variety, we are stressed about whether we will choose correctly. And what is even worse: once we make a choice, we are constantly haunted by the thought that one of the unchosen alternatives might have been better. This phenomenon is called FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). An overabundance of choices thus systematically kills our ability to be satisfied with what we currently have.
Inventing Artificial Problems: When a Real Enemy Is Missing
Biologically, we are wired to identify threats and solve problems. If our life contains no real, life-threatening obstacles, our brain does not stop looking for these threats. Instead, it begins to dramatically magnify minor inconveniences and turn them into global crises.
This is where the term First World Problems is born. These are situations that, from the perspective of human history, are completely trivial, but for today's over-saturated individual represent a source of deep frustration and anger:
- The Wi-Fi connection in the café is a bit slower than we would like.
- The courier brought the food ten minutes late and the fries were no longer perfectly crispy.
- Someone on social media expressed a different opinion on a trivial topic and we feel the need to wage an all-day war of words in the comments.
- The coffee from the automatic machine doesn't have the right froth.
When people don't have real worries about whether they will have food to eat or whether they will freeze to death, their adaptive mechanisms start treating even someone using the wrong word or rain on a day they planned a picnic as an existential threat. We create artificial conflicts, argue over microscopic deviations from our ideal, and cultivate a culture of hypersensitivity within ourselves.
From Tangible Work to Abstract Emptiness
A significant shift has also occurred in the very nature of human work. Throughout most of history, humans saw the direct result of their effort. They sowed grain and harvested it in the fall. They built a house and saw their family live in it. They made shoes that someone then walked in. Work was physically demanding, but it had a clear, tangible meaning and provided immediate feedback.
Today, a huge percentage of the population works in offices or remotely from a computer. The job description often consists of moving data from one spreadsheet to another, writing emails, optimizing processes, or approving documents that no one reads. American anthropologist David Graeber coined the term Bullshit Jobs for this phenomenon.
“A vast number of people spend their entire working lives performing tasks they themselves believe the world could easily do without. This absence of meaningfulness is a profound psychological violence inflicted upon the human soul.”
When a person spends eight hours a day on an activity whose real impact is invisible or zero, they begin to feel alienated. The money arrives in their bank account, but the sense of a job well done and purpose is missing. We then try to compensate for this deficit through excessive consumption, hoarding things, or constantly seeking new experiences.
The Cult of Perfectionism, Biohacking, and Hyper-Optimization
The absence of real problems has also led us to become obsessed with ourselves. We have been overwhelmed by a cult of self-improvement, burnout from our own drive for perfection, and a desire to constantly optimize everything we do.
It is no longer enough for modern humans to just live normally. They must:
- Measure their sleep using smart rings and watches and stress over the fact that their deep sleep stage was 10% shorter than the app recommends.
- Optimize their diet through intermittent fasting, keto diets, counting macronutrients, and dietary supplements.
- Practice biohacking, immerse in ice water at six in the morning, meditate for exactly 20 minutes, and expose themselves to morning sunlight to properly align their circadian rhythm.
- Build a personal brand and present their perfectly curated life on social media.
Instead of enjoying comfort, we turned it into a new form of drudgery. We transformed our own body and mind into a project that constantly needs to be managed, repaired, and evaluated. This relentless pressure for optimal performance in all areas of life leads to a paradoxical state: we are exhausted from trying so hard to live a “perfect” and “happy” life.
Loss of Community and the Epidemic of Loneliness
With the rise of prosperity and individual independence came another side effect: the breakdown of traditional communities. In the past, people relied on one another. Without neighborly help, it was impossible to build a house or harvest crops. Families lived intergenerationally, and people met at village festivals, in churches, or in societies.
Today, thanks to money, we can buy complete self-sufficiency. We don't need a neighbor to help us assemble furniture—we pay for a service. We don't need a grandmother for babysitting—we pay for a nanny. We don't need to go out among people to a pub—we order both food and entertainment straight to our homes.
The result is that we live in the most connected, yet simultaneously the loneliest era in history. The World Health Organization today calls loneliness a global epidemic comparable to the health risks of smoking. Prosperity has bought us independence, but deprived us of belonging, which is crucial for our mental well-being.
What Is the Way Out? How to Find Balance in an Age of Abundance
Stating that we have it too good does not mean we should wish for a return to plague epidemics, poverty, and grueling toil. However, it means that we must learn to handle prosperity consciously. Our biological hardware is not prepared for unlimited abundance, and without setting conscious boundaries, comfort will gradually destroy us.
1. Practicing Voluntary Discomfort
Ancient Roman Stoics, such as Seneca or Marcus Aurelius, knew well how dangerous unrestricted luxury could be. Therefore, they regularly practiced so-called voluntary discomfort. They intentionally took cold showers, fasted, walked on foot, or slept on hard ground.
You don't have to sleep on the floor right away, but consciously exposing yourself to mild discomfort (physical exercise, cold exposure, fasting, refusing instant gratification) resets our dopamine system. It causes us to once again appreciate ordinary things—a warm bed, a warm meal, and rest.
2. Digital Detox and the Skill of Being Bored
Boredom is not the enemy. Boredom is a space in which creativity, self-knowledge, and peace of mind are born. If we fill every free second standing in line at the post office or at a red light by pulling out our phone, we do not give our brain a chance to process emotions and thoughts.
Implementing rules like “no phones at meals,” “digital detox on weekends,” or creating tech-free zones in the home helps bring conscious attention back to the real world.
3. Returning to Real, Tangible Creation
The abstract world of work must be balanced with activities that yield a tangible result. Gardening, cooking, crafting, painting, repairing old furniture, or playing a musical instrument provide our brain with precisely the type of satisfaction that is missing in the office. We see something being created by our hands, and that restores a sense of meaning.
4. Cultivating Deep Gratitude
Gratitude is not a cliché from esoteric handbooks, but a scientifically proven psychological tool against hedonic adaptation. If we actively focus on what we already have—our health, living in peace, having a roof over our heads, and friends—we prevent our brain from taking these things for granted.
5. Focusing on Others (Transcending Your Own Ego)
The most effective antidote to over-analyzing our own minor problems is helping others. When we dedicate our time, energy, or resources to someone who truly needs it—whether through volunteering, helping family, or supporting the local community—our own “first world problems” immediately shrink to their real, negligible size.
Conclusion: Embracing Ordinariness as the Highest Form of Art
The claim that “people have it so good that they don't know what to do with themselves” describes a real crisis of purpose in modern society. We have replaced physical suffering with psychological and existential suffering. We gained freedom and comfort, but lost a clearly defined purpose and resilience.
The solution lies in understanding that happiness does not consist of constantly accumulating more experiences