Everything is Bigger . . . Than It Really Need to Be

It doesn’t necessarily take more time to live more simply. Perhaps really tasting the food we eat, really listening to our coworkers when they speak, feeling our feet connect with the pavement on our lunchtime walks instead of doing the tricky walk focused on our cell phones while trying to avoid running into lampposts, would bring more meaning out of our every day activities. If we did more of these things fully consciously, maybe we’d realize that there is more than enough goodness around us to celebrate right now, so we can slow the desperate need to be more, and enjoy the great expectations of now.

I remember having a very silly but very real thing to be excited about coming back from traveling in Europe. What was it that got me excited about coming back to the United States? Was it the free market? Liberty? Economic opportunity? Well those things are good and all, but honestly the thing I had in mind was different. The thing that excited me at the time was actually the fact that I could get a normal 20 oz bottle of Diet Coke at a reasonable price in practically any convenient store.

I was surprised the first time I visited England to find that Diet Coke was hard to find and when I did find it, it came in 8 ounce cans or weird 12 ounce bottles that cost something like 3.5 pounds. While in Britain I got used to never getting free refills of sodas at restaurants. That is if restaurants even carried soda at all. And asking for ice was always eye roll worthy apparently.

I can laugh about that and goodness knows Europe has plenty of other absolutely fantastic qualities that I am always going to be ready to forego the “proper” sized drinks for the sake of a visit. But reminiscing with those memories has gotten me thinking about how much in life is built around our expectations.

So many of us have good ideas and good intentions, but sometimes we have unrealistic expectations so when we don’t live up to those lofty aspirations we’re disappointed, and that disappointment leads to flavoring the whole experience instead of celebrating how high we actually climbed.

In the United States we sometimes even pride ourselves in wanting and cheering on only the biggest and the fastest and the highest stretches. Aspiring to do good things and to do our best at what we do is certainly very admirable. I’m certainly not speaking against that. But theirs a subtle difference between trying to do our best in what we do and never being satisfied with what we have or who we are.

There’s an economic principles called economies of scale. We’ve all heard the term. In essence it’s the concept where an organization can save costs by producing larger quantities of a good or service. I remember my microeconomics teacher loved using analogies around pizza. Economies of scale in the pizza would could be seen in buying a bigger oven so the pizza shop can make more pizzas at a similar cost in energy, and that would lead to each pizza costing a bit less to make. Or buying cheese in bulk instead in 16 ounce loaves.

The curious thing to me, is that when we talk about economies of scale, was always talk in terms of the benefits of producing more. I don’t recall ever talking about the benefits of maintaining a comfortable sized business. Our very economy is built around the need for growth. At the more micro level, cities rely on growth to pay for services and pass bond measures so that they can borrow against that future growth so they can fix issues now.

It’s no wonder, then, that our mindset would be driven toward expecting more and feeling like there must be something wrong or out of sync if we aren’t grasping for more, always. But then again, our cultural myths teach us that the good life is built around the simple. We watch films and read classic novels portraying farmers connecting to the solid and substantial earth. We revel in the quiet victories of the little-known shop owner in small town America, just living her days the best she knows how.

How do we come to terms with these conflicting aspirations? Perhaps there’s a middle ground where we pursue our genuine desires fervently but also take the time to enjoy a meaningful conversation with a friend without guilt of what else your calendar says you should be doing. Maybe it doesn’t even have to take more time to live a bit more simply. Perhaps really tasting the food we eat, really listening to our coworkers when they speak, feeling our feet connect with the pavement on our lunchtime walks instead of doing the tricky walk focused on our cell phones while trying to avoid running into lampposts. If we did more of these things fully consciously, maybe we’d realize that there is more than enough goodness around us to celebrate right now, so we can slow the desperate need to be more.