It’s an understatement to say that the world has changed rapidly in the past 20 years. If you had asked someone a couple of decades ago to imagine the world today it would be nearly impossible to contemplate our lifestyle, our products, our options, our conveniences. For those of us who lived in the era before mobile phones, tablets, apps, laptops and the internet were the norm, it feels like a different lifetime.
When I fly to London to visit my cousin, I automatically get a notification on my phone about the flight departure time. My cousin can sign up to be notified about flight time updates. I can text her if there’s a change in flight time at any point (before or after getting to the airport). If it’s in her email, she gets a direct update and I don’t even have to text. I can check-in online. I can use an app to get a ride to the airport a mere 4 minutes before I need to leave. The driver has a map that tells him/her what route to take to the airport based on current traffic conditions. Cousin gets notified about when I land. I can give her real time updates about the length of the immigration line and status of baggage claim, giving her a near perfect estimate of the moment I will walk out the door. In case she can’t pick me up from the airport I can use an app to get a ride to her location almost immediately.
The amount of ambiguity that’s been erased and the amount of predictability and efficiency that’s been added to our lives and life processes is astounding. And this is the level of convenience we are afforded when we fly across continents! In our day-to-day affairs we’re even more spoiled. What’s more is that this is not a luxury afforded to the few who can afford it; all this happens in a relatively inexpensive way providing this access to vast numbers of people around the world.
This is amazing. For so many of us to be able to make the most of our time, our mental resources and our energy. Oprah says “wasting your time is wasting your life” so in a way, we’re getting more of our lives available for us to live as we want. When ambiguous factors are in control, predictable, certain and when the mundane is taken care of, we are freed up to think about more important things. But is that what we’re doing with these gifts of newfound moments of life? What are we missing out on when we rely on all these guaranteed efficiencies? How can we make sure we don’t lose what’s important? Technological advancement has and will continue to open up a whole new world. It falls upon our generation to live out answers to these questions in a way that uses the opportunity afforded to us to make our future bright and not plummet into darkness.
We are so lucky! Until as recently as our parents’ generation, people were in survival mode. Of course, over centuries there has been a steady progression from purely survival mode (think “Game of Thrones”). Until a couple of decades ago it was still just about making it in the world. There wasn’t much importance given to how you felt about work or maybe even your spouse. In recent years we’ve made leaps out of survival mode; our thinking has expanded and includes the prospect of happiness. This generation believes they are entitled not just to a job or a spouse but also being happy with those things. And rightfully so! We don’t just want to survive, we want to thrive. There are a number of reasons that many of us can now claim the luxury of happiness. One such reason is that women have been steadily becoming more and more financially independent so there’s no longer a necessity to marry or to stay in an unhappy marriage.
In love and in life, we have so many options to be happy. If we’re not happy, we can choose from a ton of healing modalities and therapies. We can pick hobbies that make us happy. We can travel easily. We have more career choices than ever before so we get the chance to enjoy what we do on a day-to-day basis. We can innovate and become entrepreneurs with relative ease. There’s less social stigma and restrictions so we can marry whoever we want, whenever we want, if we want. And if we’re not happy we can get divorced without much social stigma. We can have babies or not. And it’s not just that we have more options but MORE of us have more options. Historically oppressed groups like women, transgenders, marginalized groups, etc. have more rights and support than ever before (although we do have a long way to go). Now that we’ve arrived at this critical juncture we have two choices about who we choose to be and how we live day-to-day.
There are two ways to go forward:
1. Continuing in “survival” mode
Now that we don’t have to worry about survival as much will we still engage in survival-based thinking, limiting ourselves to the chase of worldly things like status, money, appearances, fame, popularity, etc.? “Survival mode” is all about getting by so our free time and energy drift to pleasure or more superficial concerns - having fun, partying, shopping, being physically attractive, getting likes on facebook, planning our next vacation, getting approval, the money, the house, the car, etc. And these things are still important and fun of course, but since the world’s ethos has changed, we have the option to not SOLELY focus on self-serving survival needs. If the survival route is the only one we continue to pursue then we’re going to feel out of alignment and that won’t feel so good. We will feel isolated, experience intense feelings of depression and hopelessness and a general existential angst. We already see this happening where the modern lifestyle has created disconnection leading to more depression and anxiety than ever before; our click-of-a-button era has led to more comparison, more entitlement, more instant gratification, less patience, less warmth and connection.
Another thing to watch out for is the predictability, convenience and certainty afforded by our devices which leads us to have certain illusions about life being easy and under our control. Life is not easy or under our control and so when we’re confronted by this reality we are far more upset by inevitable breakdowns in life like failure, rejection, disappointment, loss, etc.
2. Choosing the path of consciousness
So we have the option to stay identified with more superficial values and suffer or we can make a deliberate effort to get conscious and aware about who we choose to be with the increased time and opportunities that are available to us. Now that we have many survival issues covered (that were real threats in the past) we can take a more meaningful course of standing up for what matters, finding a purpose, channeling our creativity, valuing healing and self-expression. We can focus on repairing the wounds that were created during the survival era where people were not so nice to each other because that’s not what you do when resources are scarce. We can use technology as the amazing equalizer that it is, collectively dismantling power structures and privileges of certain groups of people over others.
Instead of mindlessly relying on technology which creates the illusion of certainty and gives us a false sense of security. We should deliberately cut off from it once in a while; we can disconnect from relying on phones, gadgets, maps, etc. and spend time alone. This would help us have real human connection and experience presence in our bodies, not just minds. When I travel to foreign countries alone with minimal connection to the world on my phone, I connect so much to where I am. I’m present, curious and engaged. I pay attention to where I’m going and who I’m meeting and connect with the place/people/moment in a way that’s almost spiritual. I’m trying to bring more of that way-of-being into my day-to-day life as well.
The introduction of tech is forcing us to choose something more conscious, more meaningful because if we don’t make that choice then we will inevitably feel worse than before tech came into our lives. It’s no longer an option to stay the same and NOT suffer. In conclusion, we can either decide to get conscious or we can default into survival mode. We can use technology and the seeming ease of our modern day lives to slip into complacency, which is going to be dangerous or we can use our freed-up energy to get conscious - creating meaning, healing, love, courage, inclusion, equality, etc.