Complacency and Comfort: The Biggest Roadblocks to Society’s Development
Back in 2017, there was an influx of memes relating to the development (or the lack thereof) of flying cars. If you’ve never seen one of them, you’re in luck. Here’s an example of just one of the many:
Originally, these just seemed like the usual simple (and not very funny) memes that bounced around the Internet for a while, and then eventually disappeared. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for this particular meme. It’s been reused over and over again, even now in the year 2020.
This has led me to wonder why exactly these haven’t changed? Where are all the commercially available flying cars, really? It seems our society has become so complacent with the way things are. Back when technology was newer and brighter, the possibilities and applications were seemingly endless. But now it seems that we’ve hit a rut and nothing has changed.
Simply put by PayPal’s CEO, Peter Thiel,
“In the late 1960s people looked forward to a four-day workweek, energy too cheap to meter, and vacations on the moon. But it didn’t happen. The smartphones that distract us from our surroundings also distract us from the fact that our surroundings are strangely old: only computers and communications have improved dramatically since midcentury.”
Not to sound like anyone’s mother or anything, but we as a society have become so accustomed to all the cool gadgets we have (smartphones, laptops, smartwatches, etc.) that we have reached a point of satisfaction. Every new startup seems to build over the last one by adding a “better” heart rate monitor to its fitness watch.
But when you think about it from a farther standpoint, nothing has really changed.
Plainly said, we’ve become complacent. We are all satisfied with the way our lives are, and never seem to attempt to reach for anything more. Where have all our ambitions to actually develop revolutionizing technology gone?
In this article, I will address:
- Stagnancy in society
- Stagnancy in your everyday life
- How you can become anti-complacent
- The Future
Stagnancy Is Present All Throughout Our Society — And It’s Not a Good Thing ❌
Our growth and development as a society are reaching a plateau because we’ve entered a period where we seem to be fine with the way everything is currently done. We find happiness in our existing cell phones, and are too occupied to consider the fact that there may be better devices we could be creating. Even in our everyday lives, we settle once we have found comfort, and don’t attempt to achieve anything else.
We are Too Comfortable With Our Current Technology 🤷🏾♀️
Of course, technology is transforming every single day. New discoveries and advancements are always being made. The problem is, many of them aren’t having any significant impacts on the world. Sure, there are so many startups coming up with pretty impressive ideas that will make sure I’m living a more comfortable life, but why aren’t more people researching how to use technology to solve world hunger?
We are way too satisfied with the way our world is right now. We don’t put effort into trying to make advancements towards a brighter future. If we look at it, there are so many things in the world that could be changed. People are living in poverty, the climate is changing, and not everyone has access to quality education.
Just knowing these alone should be enough to make us unsatisfied. Why should we just accept and dismiss these issues, while we continue to put energy into competitive markets where people make repetitive versions of the same products over and over again?
When you take on another perspective, you can see that part of the reason we are so complacent is because of the amount of dominance huge companies like Google and Microsoft have over their individual markets. Of course, this doesn’t mean that either company is bad necessarily, but maybe the fact that they are such huge monopolies causes us to be complacent as well. This may be because we are already accustomed to the fact that they are on top.
To explain further, take Google. Google completely revolutionized search engines, and has since become a monopoly in its market. We’re all so comfortable with Google that even hearing other names like “DuckDuckGo” sends shivers of unfamiliarity down our spine. This is part of the reason why they are such a large company.
Now I have a question: Is Google really the best there is? Why do we just settle for what they offer as it is?
We don’t know the answer. 🤷🏾 We’re so comfortable with it that we never question what else there could be. With advancements involving technology such as quantum computing, maybe a different company should take control. However, will this even happen with Google being the giant that it is?
This is just one of the many examples where we see that complacency could be holding us back as a society. Settling for things the way they are just because they have always been that way can be dangerous, and prevent us from moving forward.
We can do so much better than that by being anti-complacent and not just accepting the current way we live as standard. But to impact society, it all starts with the individual. We all need to identify areas of complacency and actively seek for ways to really grow.
Identifying Complacency in Our Everyday Lives 👩🏾
Ever question small things like why we don’t have clothing that just cleans itself so we don’t have to do laundry as often? (It would save a lot of water!) Or why do our devices have to die at all? (Can we have unlimited battery?)
Most likely, no. Why? Because that’s just the way clothes and phones are.
The fact that no one is questioning even small issues like these shows the comfort we find in being complacent. We are even complacent about issues that have impacts on the way we live our lives.
This week, I tackled an issue that I thought was always part of me: the fact that I absolutely suck at chemistry, and I always have. I had been complacent with this because I thought of it as a hardcore fact, rather than a made-up truth based on my experiences. I found comfort in this truth as well. It felt like an excuse every time I didn’t do well on a quiz or exam. However, after learning about complacency, I finally decided to ask myself “why?” I didn’t want to accept this as a way that I lived my life.
So I sat down, picked up my AP textbook, and forced myself to learn chemistry.
I can’t say I’m an expert at it now. But at least now I know that getting a 5 on the AP exam isn’t out of my reach.
The point here is, comfort and complacency work hand in hand to hold us back from reaching our true potentials — both as a society, and as individuals.
I could never have imagined getting a 5 on the AP exam if I didn’t decide to break that made-up truth. Similarly, how can we imagine a better society if we are all living in a pool of comfort and complacency, accepting made-up facts that dictate how we live?
Breaking the Double C’s — How You Can Push Society Forward 🚀
If you notice, a word I mentioned a lot earlier was the word “why?” I questioned everything to find a reason behind it. This is just one of the small ways that you can stop being complacent. When you start complaining about something, ask yourself why the issue exists in the first place. You can find yourself coming up with solutions that maybe everyone needs.
I’m scared this network isn’t secure. — Why?
I hate the fact that there isn’t a cure for cancer yet. — Why?
And so on. This applies to even smaller areas of your life as well. Why do you always surround yourself with the same friend group when you know for a fact that they are toxic?
By practicing being anti-complacent in our everyday lives, we will become a society that doesn’t settle for the way things are, just because it is comfortable. This can lead to (actually) new innovations that impact the world as we know it, and push us forward.
A Bright Future of New Technology and Anti-Complacency 🎯
Our society needs people who are anti-complacent and don’t just stay comfortable with the way things are. We need people who are always asking “why” and will help us get to a future where we refuse to let problems like world hunger and poverty exist.
We need new, impactful, and valuable technology — not 10 versions of Facebook. The people who create these will be the ones who are leaders of society in the future.
Remember: Steve Jobs could have never created Apple if he was perfectly complacent with the way people communicated.
I started this article off with a Peter Thiel Quote, and now I’ll end off with one:
“Every moment in business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not start an operating system. The next Larry Page won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won't create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.”
Key Takeaways 🔑
- When we are complacent with our society, we become stagnant and allow others to dictate the way we live.
- We must always question why everything is the way it is so we can move forward.
- Train yourself to be anti-complacent and solve for larger issues, rather than creating copies.
One Last Thing, I Promise 🙏🏾
Did you enjoy this article? Would you like to see more from me?
