How McDonalds Destroyed Your Happiness

Last week, I was between Netflix series, and searching for something to "watch" while working on my laptop during my "off" hours.  I came across another TED  series on Capitalism.  Torn by mixed feelings of groaning because it will be about one of the most boring topics ever- economics- and reminiscing about people I once knew, I decided to put it in the queue...just in case I somehow overcame the overwhelming gagging reflex I was experiencing thinking about watching a documentary on accounting.

After all, it was a TED series, so how bad could it be?

Gag, gag.

And then it happened:  I needed something to bore me to sleep following an exciting night of 2-year-old-molar teething.  So, I clicked on it.

And to my surprise, the series wasn't really about accounting and money, at all.  

It was about sociology and psychology....

...and an overwhelming message from the speakers:  too many choices make people miserable.

WHY?

I mean, it's anti-American to think about purposefully limiting your choices.  How could people survive if they couldn't customize EVERYTHING.  What if it wasn't all a la carte?

The problem arises from everyone being treated as equals.

I KNOW!  Another anti-American thought:  people aren't and shouldn't be treated as equals?

No, but it's all about blame.  If everyone is equal and you're not as rich as Bill Gates, it's because YOU'RE doing something wrong.  When people weren't equals, it was easy to say that your problems were thrust upon you and blame "THEM".

Furthermore, there's so much peer pressure to BE Bill Gates that we spend OUR ENTIRE ADULT LIVES second guessing ourselves.  I think I'm the biggest offender of this.  

"Sh@T.  I shouldn't have said that.  They're going to think XYZ."

"Crap.  I should have taken the surface streets."

I mean, even our daily commutes are doomed to add to our stress levels (and thereby shorten our already stressed out lives) because we have too many choices on how to get work and back.  Don't believe me?  Know someone who lives outrageously far away from the office?  Are they ever stressed out about the commute.  I bet not.  Because there's really only way for them to get to work, so they "live with it".

And that's just what all of these very brilliant scientists who were giving the TED talks on "capitalism" were saying:  all we want is happiness and health in life.  Choices stress us out.  Despite all of the advances we've made in our technological renaissance, more people are depressed, severely depressed, and suicidal than ever before.  

My generation is the first in America that is expected to live a shorter life than our parents, and while I can't deny the disgusting over-indulgence of Americans in ANY and ALL kinds of food does play a part, you also can't deny that the major killer of the technological renaissance is STRESS.

I personally have never seen so many people in their 30s going gray who weren't landing planes on aircraft carriers or fighting fires.  And it's even worse for us because we are no longer allowed to go and be firemen and policemen.  We're all expected to go work in an office cubical somewhere, typing endless chains of meaningless emails and abusing PowerPoint.  We are not expected to achieve anything...except perfection.  In fact, there's no way for any of us to really achieve anything because we're not building anything...really.  Projects in IT last 2-10 YEARS.  Building a house lasts 2-6 MONTHS.  How many opportunities for success do you have in IT? 

And it all comes back to choices.  Project leaders can't make choices, which drags out our ability to achieve.  We can't decide which road to take to work or which 401K investment to make and stress about it.

And then most of us go to McGag's and fumble around at the front of the line because we can't make up our minds about what we even want to eat.

..not that it matters, anyway, because it'll all kill you.