In the course of the last few generations, society has developed in such a way that we can live more and more safely, both financially and socially. We have got used to being able to pick and choose quite freely in big and small matters. Our circumstances are so good now that we have almost forgotten that our decisions also have consequences and that we cannot opt into or out of all life’s conditions.

That which we obtain too easily we esteem too lightly.

That which we obtain too easily, we esteem lightly.

They seemed to be able to choose. We seemed to be able to choose, then. We were a society dying of too much choice.

I thought about how easily we are all brainwashed by our society and culture to stop thinking and just assume by default that more money equals more success and more happiness, when ultimately happiness is really just about enjoying life.

Much of human progress has involved reducing the time and energy [and] the number of processes... to obtain the necessities of life. ...In the past few decades, though, that long process of simplifying and bundling economic offerings has been reversed. Increasingly, the trend moves back toward time-consuming foraging behavior...

Have you noticed how over recent decades, our expectations of the future have gradually shifted? How maybe we used to quietly assume that life for the next generation would be better than ours, and now quietly assume the opposite? That is not the mark of a civilisation that is making good choices. That is not a show that we need to get back on the road.

Your habits are often a byproduct of convenience. Humans are wired to seek the path of least resistance, which means the most convenient option is often the one that wins. Make good choices more convenient and bad choices less so. Behavior will improve naturally.

Most of the things that are happening in the world right now are because we have chosen to put profits above the people and our planet.

The marriage of convenience has this to recommend it: we are better judges of convenience than we are of love.

"Like everything in life, if you are willing to make the short-term sacrifice, you’ll have the long-term benefit. 'Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.'”

We live in a time when complex ethical questions are easily subordinated to the demands of efficiency, profit maximization, and maintenance or furthering of political power.

The bourgeois prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to the deathly inner consuming fire

It is especially easy in our time to forget others, largely because of the conditions in modern society.