Exclude

For most of human history obesity was not a problem, now it is. For most of human history distraction was not a problem, now it is. For most of human history, clutter was not a problem, now it is.

We have evolved to want more. More food, fun, more information... More, more, more. Inclusion of the things we wanted into our life - that was the problem. Not enough.

However, with the advances made in the developed world, not enough is no longer a problem - too much is.

On a fundamental level, the paradigm has shifted from inclusion making your life better, to exclusion.

We have not evolved to do this.

We have a great variety of food, fun, information, and stuff. Everything is in available within in a few clicks for taps of your fingers. It's an extraordinary achievement and one that we aren't prepared for by evolution.

We cannot possibly do it all, be it all, and have it all, and we know it. And yet that is exactly what our genes are instructing us to do.

We have to rely on our brains to regulate this shock of availability but they often fail. Moreover new technologies and tools that we have developed incentivize us to include things into our life, not exclude.

Instead of rationally helping us exclude, they help us irrationally include. It is up to the individual to exclude as much as they can. The problem is that the system is stacked against individuals.

It takes effort in well to exclude things. It takes deliberation decisiveness, and a certain degree of ruthlessness, but those aren't traits that are present from the birth in us. They have to be cultivated and there is no incentive for most of us to even begin to cultivate them. We have to develop systems in our lives our own. We have to create our own sound-proof, noise-proof, more-proof room where no one can reach us and where we can hear our own voice.

Without such a place we are swept away in the constant what's new and more and the existing systems will take advantage of that basic desire.

I invite you to be more exclusive.

Your life will be better the more you get reasonably exclude.

Exclude.