Have Life's "Goalposts" Been Moved Out of Our Reach?

Over the weekend, we had some friends visiting and we ended up having a bit of a discussion about life and the rising cost of living.

This wasn't really a discussion about hardship, so much as a discussion about how we increasingly seem to end up abandoning goals we'd hoped to accomplish in life.

"There's just not enough time and energy..."

Of course it's perhaps nothing new. For many generations, the older generations have talked about the they lived in "simpler times." Maybe there's actually an element of concrete truth to that... regardless of whether or we look at is as a good thing, or a bad thing.

The discussion turned to the reality that whereas we definitely have more than we used to — which, I suppose, could be seen as a positive — but at the same time we also have to give up more of ourselves in order to have those additional things/benefits in our lives.

When I was at University — 40 years ago, UGH! — my cost of "telecommunications" consisted of a $14.95 (plus tax) telephone line, $21.95 a month for cable TV (which gave me about 55 channels) and maybe $10.00 to buy stamps to mail my bills and an occasional letter.

In other words, it was less than $50.00 a month, and I felt like I was pretty well equipped!

Fast forward to 2023... and I have $110 high speed Internet bill, an $89 mobile phone bill, an $86 "land line" because we live in an area with unreliable cell service, about $80 for cable TV and another $60 or so for a range of online streaming services.

That adds up to $425 a month, and sometimes more when you can additional data usage fees... or almost TEN TIMES as much as it used to cost.

I can pretty much guarantee you that inflation has not been 900% since 1983! In fact, it has been more like 200%!

So, the "goalposts" of what we believe we need is what has grown the most!

Of course, similar comparisons can be made across a very wide range of our lives.

In an absolute sense, it could probably be argued that various services have become cheaper, thanks to improved technology and automation... the problem is that we have vast expanded the range of services we think we "need."

And so, even though there was once a promise that technology would make our lives cheaper, the reality is that such an assertion might be true, but but our "basket of desires" has grown much BIGGER.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

What do YOU think? Has technology made us want "more" at a faster rate than our ability to keep up, even if individual things are cheaper? Do leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 2023.02.28 00:59 PST
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