You can change that

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation"
- Henry David Thoreau

This quote is referring to the people who are living empty lives due to unfulfilling work and too little freedom. However, nobody wakes up and says, "Ah yes. Today I'd like to find some meaningless work and a boss that won't let me go to the bathroom without pulling out a stopwatch." People never purposely decide to live poorly. So how do they fall into a life like this?

Have you ever been scrolling through a website on your phone and the text is way too big? You can change that. Have you ever been annoyed by the distracting ads and pop ups on every single page? You can change that. What about those websites that don't support dark mode and burn your eyeballs late at night? You can change that. Literally every single thing about your internet experience can be altered however you would like. Yet many people fuss with their phone in quiet desperation.

Often people live their lives the same way they interact with the internet. They take whatever situation the world hands them without question. Most of the time, the situation they are handed is purely random - a roll of the dice. If the odds put them in a tough position, so be it. Their job was an opportunity that just so happened to be available when they needed it. They never left their hometown because they just so happened to be born there. There are endless examples like this. Yet despite the ability to change everything, they don't.

We are the only thing in the known universe whose wants are unbounded. And almost anything we want, we can change. Push, poke, prod, and will things into existence. It is our gift, and we should use it.

2023-07-16