Less Is More: Time to Stop Consuming Ourselves to Emptiness

“But when we really delve into the reasons for why we can’t let something go, there are only two: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future.”―Marie Kondo

Essentialism has been on my mind of late. I’m guessing the same may be true for many of you. I’m considering questions like:

Who is essential?

What is essential?

What do I need — I mean really need?

Prior to the Great Pause, we’d been living under More’s Law. (No, not that Moore’s Law, though the one I’m talking about also has to do with getting more for less.)

There’s another law of more for less at work in our modern world, one that rules but is not limited to the tech industry. It’s the principle that says more is better. That no matter how much we have, we always need more.

We deserve more.

We will be happier, more successful, more loved if only we get — and are — more.

We can have more for less.

The more for less thing also and insidiously applies to our role in the global economy. With the Industrial Revolution, human beings suddenly became human doings. As if we were just another input to the system. To be measured for our productivity level and optimized to see how much performance could be extracted from us.

Measured for our contribution to the bottom line.