Evening,
Since the conclusion of my exams, I’ve had a lot of free time. This free time has conferred on me an opportunity to engage in myriad activities. On the one hand, I have ample time to drink bottles of beer and talk until the early hours with my friends on video call. I could wake in early afternoon, and lay bound with fetters of pleasurable impotence, my inaction rendering no real consequence.
I believe that lasting happiness is the byproduct of a balance of the above two lifestyles. Not everyone can get up at 4:30am, ready to run 30km a day like a Navy SEAL. Just as other people’s mental health would fast deteriorate with an extremely cavalier lifestyle comprising of late nights, social media and cheap alcohol.
That said, one of the unfortunate consequences of today’s era is that people can become extremely accustomed to comfort. Not excess, but comfort. One of the reasons for this is beguiling expectations. Let us put it this way. If you were a medieval woman, chances were high that you were a peasant. The peasant lifestyle entailed infrequent bathing (approximately once a month), reproducing and living to a good age of forty. You could not rationally expect anything more than shovelling horse manure seven days a week. As such, if you wanted a new bull cart, and if you got one, you were content. Think of a similar scenario in today’s age. You’re a middle class youth, and you want (and aim), to buy a Mercedes in five years time. If in five years time you can only afford a Fiat, chances are you’ll feel a sense of discontent.
I would imagine this discontent stems from a mixture of things.
One, comparing yourself to others: this is one of the more unfortunate human instincts. The medieval woman with the bull cart couldn’t see Instagram posts of a medieval Molly-Mae Hague in the royal castle, with a super-bull cart 9000. She couldn’t see the silicon
Two, expectations of yourself: this is one of the prime drivers of ambition. It is innate to the human condition to strive for more, and to constantly seek self improvement. This is to be applauded. However, engaging in a never-ending search for self betterment will ultimately lead you down a rabbit hole. This rabbit hole, although endowed with extrinsic things like expensive cars and diamond rings, also entails feelings of inadequacy and un-fulfiment. Far better to take a step back every once in a while, and have a few beers on a video call with your friends.
That said, I do believe that fulfilment and discomfort are closely correlated. It is such an easy period in history to be alive in a physical sense. Never before now has the human life expectancy been so high, nor have the chances of physical war been so low. Never before have swathes of information been readily available to you at the touch of a mobile phone. With Zoom, Netflix and Amazon Delivery, unquestionably it has never been easier to self isolate due to Covid-19. However, during this period in history, it has probably never been easier to have an extremely cavalier attitude to life. It has never been easier to drink at home and drop into members of the opposite sexes DMs.
It is therefore up to us to seek more than what the realms of comfort and cheap alcohol offer. Look within yourself, find a difficult challenge, and strive to accomplish it. As one of the most influential philosophers of the modern era, Frederick Nietzsche put it, “the tree that would grow to heaven must send its roots to hell.” Embrace things that are not incredibly comforting, like frequent exercise, reading a fiction or non-fiction book or telling a parent how much you appreciate them. Only then will you genuinely and deeply enjoy the comfort we have become so accustomed to.
