Enough is the keyword for me these days.
I was randomly looking at things on YouTube and I started to watch videos about new cars. While they are nice, my used car is enough for me. It is interesting to look at things, but when you consider things you often find some crazy justifications for purchase.
It is true that we fall in love or like something first and then seek to rationalize it. For example, I think cars are an interesting use of technology and in the past, I bought cars because of their safety and technological value. Nothing wrong with that. However, watching the videos today about the technology in the cars I’m not sure it makes the cars safer. I have read articles that state that having your eyes off the road for 2 seconds is worse than drugs or sleep and I have experienced sleepy driving and it scared me. I can’t imagine worse.
A common fear people have is of missing out on something. FOMO. This is linked directly to distracted driving. I have been a passenger of someone who checked their iPhone and it was alarming how their distraction was. I told them immediately that I didn’t want to ride with someone on their phone, and they stopped. Yet it is very difficult for most people who grew up with smartphones to let go of the grip iPhones have on them. Apple even had to put a lock on phones that were moving that at first, I was unhappy about and then realized they wanted their customers alive to buy the new iPhones. When someone does something 99% of it is self-interest motivating them.
Isn’t it enough that we are reachable? Do we have to be reachable every second? No. I worked for a company once where I started as a consultant and I wanted to be a team player and kept my iPhone with me as much as possible. I was recognized as being very responsive. Yet I found no satisfaction in feeling chained to a device and I have stopped doing that.
Why do we sometimes need to go to extremes to find out something isn’t working for us? Going to extremes is something that I used to do, but now as I get wiser I let go of those extremes. In fact, if you find yourself thinking, maybe this is going overboard it probably is a good time to reflect on what you are doing.