The End of Productivity

What happens when producing more yields less satisfaction? The rules we have been operating under may no longer apply. Business schools teach maximization, efficiency and optimality, but productivity increases have yielded a negative happiness curve.

Economically, we are not prepared to deal with this. Our system is predicated on endless growth. Our leaders preach it and we are trained to believe it. Produce more and we will be better off. It is quickly becoming a myth in the modern world.

For the first time in history, we have more than enough, everything we need and most things we want. Having more will not help us. Bigger waistlines, bigger debts and bigger commutes show that more is not better. Psychologically, we acknowledging we have enough is critical to our wellbeing.

At the same time, we will need a new economic system to support the new reality of enough. Our economy will not continue to grow forever. It will flatline. And when it does, we should not panic.

We should realize it is the natural result of having enough, and that shared prosperity is the path to a healthy community. We should embrace a future where the growth we seek lies in the growth of communal wellbeing, rather than the growth of an economic bottom line.

The age of productivity is over. We are now in the era of wellbeing.When you realize you have enough, you are free to live and to be. I am thankful to live in these times, to be awake to realize I have enough to live, and enough to meet the challenges of tomorrow.