It is now a cliché’ to state that “too much of anything is bad”. The problem we face today is that we are just not able to figure out “how much is that too much?”. We are only able to realize how bad “too much” of something has become is after the damage is done.
There was a time when a vast majority of people around the world were victims of the “lack of” somethings in life. Lack of food, shelter, education, clothing, money, transportation and so on. All these were signs of different types of ‘poverty’ and we had people dying or becoming impoverished because of the lack of these things in their life.
Today, the scale has shifted entirely towards having too much of everything and we becoming victims of it. Let me list a few of which people are dying around the world;
- Too much of eating – obesity. Now considered one of the big contributors to lifestyle diseases and death
- Too much infrastructure development – deforestation. Felling of trees and depleting forests
- Too much construction around water bodies in the name of tourism – receding coastlines. Increased devastation and loss of life due to flooding
- Too much tourist activity around mountains and ice lands – leading to melting ice and glaciers and global warming
- Too much transportation – leading to increased use of fuel and air pollution
- Too many factories – leading to pollutants and poisoning of water and air and deaths caused as a consequence
- Too much travel around the world – leading to increased spread of viruses and diseases which are now becoming global problems and hard to contain (corona virus is a case in point).
- Too much uncontrolled and unmonitored growth of internet – leading to rapid spread of terrorist ideologies and acts leading to so much strife, war and casualties of the human kind.
- Too much social media and technological connectedness – leading to lack of interpersonal connection and the human touch. People feeling increasingly isolated and alone. More suicides being reported because of lack of human to human connections and local community support. People are today found to be at dinner tables and restaurants sitting together but not emotionally connected because of the interference of technology.
- Too much exposure to knowledge – increased hate and conflict because people are not able to differentiate between real and fake news.
- Too much liberalization and openness – leading to rapid migration of people to cities which are not ready to support this sudden explosion of population. This has also led to increased levels of local unemployment and communities losing their cultural identity. Many nations had to close their doors to immigrants not because they don’t like them per se, but it was really becoming difficult to handle the problems arising out of the rise of migrant labor. It is a fight to safeguard one’s own culture and economy from the threats of infiltration.
- Too much AI, MI and technological innovations – depleting “Emotional Intelligence”
You will notice that we are having the negative effects of “too much” in all of the above and did not realize the gravity of it till we became victims of it. When we started to feel the heat from it. When we saw people dying cause of it.
I am not suggesting that rapid growth and innovation is not necessary. My point is that unless we “pause” and take a breather we will not be in a position to keep pace and eventually die in the process.
Have you been a victim of “too much”? Can you add to the list of “too much” which has turned bad for you? Can we help each other from becoming the victims of “too much”?
