Our silly obsession with performance
Every day a new thing gets released, a new AI model, new car, new service, new phone, new laptop, new headphones, new power bank, new, new, new… and our compulsion is to ask: how does it perform vs what came before?
Completely natural way of seeing thing, completely pointless way to measure that, because that question is a proxy for:
Does this make my life better?
And that is a complicated question with a sample of one that no one but you can answer (and maybe not even you!).
We have benchmarks, KPIs, metrics, statistics, testimonials, all in the name of answering that question, does it make my life better?, without really answering it directly.
I am saying it is a silly obsession specifically when it comes to performance:
- this car has 24 more hp or kw than the previous one
- this laptop is 15% faster at this benchmark than the old one
- these headphones deliver a crispier mid-range than the competition (audiophile are the worst, don’t ask me how I know)
None of this tells you: value of time spend to earn money is lower than increase of life satisfaction for buying this.
Because it is mostly about life satisfaction now, isn’t it? Your car is perfectly capable to drive you from A to B for another 5 years, your phone can do the things you need for another 2 or 3 at minimum, those headphones sound 99.9% the same as the one you already have, so what is this all about if not self-gratification?
Yeah, I just discovered consumerism in 2026, I know. There is something to be said about repeating what we already know, it is how we build and maintain our system of beliefs.
So go on and repeat the obivous: you and the world would have already forgotten about it in the deafening noise advertiser put out to silence that inner voice… double down, shout it out:
I’m fine with what I have as it doesn’t define who I am or what I feel.