the biggest problem that you’ve never thought about
There's a problem in our culture hidden in plain sight. You experience it when you open up Spotify and are overwhelmed by all of the artists, when you scroll through Netflix yet can’t find anything to watch, or when you read so many restaurant reviews you're not sure which one you want to go to. The undiscussed difficulty that we face as a culture is the problem of abundance.
This is a strange problem to have. For 99% of human history, ordinary people haven’t struggled with abundance but rather scarcity; there wasn’t enough of anything, whether food, clothing, or opportunities. People lived simple lives trying to eke out an existence, spending all of their lives in the same village, surrounded by the same people, eating the same simple food meal after meal.
Because of these scarcities, Western culture focused its efforts on creating more and more stuff. Through things like trade, the Industrial Revolution, the assembly line, the tractor, and all kinds of other technology, human ingenuity increased society’s ability to produce, manufacture, and create. This led to a cultural breakthrough in the 1950s; because of the manufacturing capacity gained in World War II and the invention of easy credit, many Americans, for the first time, had access to more things than they needed.
But now, we’re so removed from the days of scarcity that our culture has swung too far the other way. As consumption has increased, companies have pushed to give the American consumer more and more choices. Now many people are struggling not because there’s not enough, but rather because there’s too much. In a development that would shock our ancestors, our culture suffers from having too much, giving us access to too many calories, too many choices, and too many opportunities.
As I look around our culture today, few people are talking about the problem of abundance. In a strange twist of fate, the greatest obstacle to the good life, especially for young people, is not that there is too little, but rather that there is too much. Young people are faced with:
Too many places to live, so they jump around from city to city, spending their lives wondering whether they should move.
Too many good careers to pursue, so they become hesitant and worry that they are choosing the wrong one.
Too many calories to eat and drink, so they struggle to be healthy and eat and drink in moderation.
Too many single people to date, so they ignore good options in hopes of a dream option blowing them away.
Too many people to be friends with, so they develop a large number of shallow friendships instead of pursuing relationships that have depth.
Too much social media to consume, so spend their lives scrolling their phones.
Too many places to travel to, so they live in a constant state of discontent.
Too many needs to help with, so they feel overwhelmed and never get involved with anything.
Too many brands at the grocery store, so they spend five minutes trying to figure out which kind of yogurt to buy.
Too many possessions to buy, so they fill up their homes with all kinds of luxuries and things they won't use.
Too many products to choose from, so they read review after review in search of the most perfect can opener.
These are just a few of the ways that our culture's abundance causes problems in our lives. Our lives are overwhelmed by all of the choices and options that we have, causing us to grow restless with monotony, become paralyzed with uncertainty, or struggle with lethargy. Our culture has sought after abundance for so long, that even though we’ve reached our goal, we haven’t switched our internal messaging to give people the tools they need to say no to the ever-increasing amount of choices, possessions, and opportunities available to us.
But if we don't learn how to live simple lives, God-centered amid abundance, we'll continue to struggle with things like gluttony, towards food and shopping and travel, or feeling numb, as young people sit alone in cities of millions scrolling on their phones. Of course, we shouldn’t hope to go back to a world of scarcity (and there are still some people dealing with scarcity today), but we should be careful to understand what our world of abundance is doing to our souls.
Our culture tells us that pursuing abundance will always bring life, but in reality, it only leads to misery. As the Bible says in Proverbs 23:
Listen, my son, and be wise, and set your heart on the right path: do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.
So what do you need to do to live a healthy life in 2022? You need to learn to say no. No to the constant temptation to pursue more of everything, whether it's more money, work, opportunities, friendships, choices, square feet, or whatever you think you really need. If you don't, you'll be overwhelmed by abundance, causing you to struggle with debt, weight gain, distraction, superficiality, restlessness, and a constant need to change and try new things. In a culture that believes that too much is never enough, you have to draw boundaries and put limits on how you live. At some point, you have to say no to new friendships, new dating options, new restaurants, and new careers, so that you can invest in the choices that you have made in the past.
I've always liked an exercise Warren Buffett uses to cut down on choices in a culture of abundance. He says that if you want to live a meaningful life, you need to write down the 25 things you want to accomplish in life. Then, you need to take a marker and cross out 20 of those things and forget about them forever. Now, spend your life focused on the five things you have left and you will have enough time to do these things well.
While this might sound harsh, it's so important to constantly prune your life. Most people try to improve their lives by adding to them, but in a culture of abundance, you need to take things away. You need to prune the many superficial and unnecessary things from your life so that you have time for the things that your soul hungers. Your soul doesn’t want another Amazon delivery and the metaphorical junk food of our consumeristic society, but rather depth, purpose, and meaning.
Our culture is a bottomless pit; there are more books to read, more TikToks to watch, more new restaurants to try, and more people to meet than you could ever get around to in a hundred lifetimes. If you don’t learn how to say no to the abundance that knocks on our door and seeks to steal your attention, you’ll damage your life until you do.
Of course, no one wants you to say no. Big companies and big government want you to say yes to abundance since that keeps a culture addicted to consumption coming back to spend more money. But if you want to live a life of depth and richness and beauty you must. Your soul depends on your brain saying no; no to endless TV, no to moving every three years, and no to the temptation to live your life completely online.
Where do you get the ability to say no to our culture of abundance? By pursuing the only thing that will ever satisfy your soul: God. The Australian pastor Mark Sayers says, “Even a culture of super-abundance cannot fill the God-shaped hole.” The psalmist David agrees with him in Psalm 16, only God can give human beings the satisfaction that they are looking for through abundance. He writes:
You have given my heart greater joy by far, than when grain and new wine most abundant are.
A life full of abundance can make you happy for a moment or two, but it will never give you joy. Possessions and experiences and opportunities are good things, but when we lean on them as ultimate things, they will cause our souls to shrivel up and die. It’s only when you look to God for your joy, security, and peace, and not the abundance of this world, that you can live a life of God-glorifying moderation. What good is it, after all, to gain the whole world yet lose your own soul?
