About a year ago, I saw a friend of mine.
He was dissatisfied.
He’d built a successful company but hadn’t been able to sell it.
He wanted to make some money.
He wanted the things successful people have.
He wanted a house abroad.
But he couldn’t sell his company, so he didn’t have any of those things.
Which is why he was dissatisfied.
Last week I saw him again.
He’d managed to sell his company.
He’d made a lot of money.
He’d bought a beautiful house in France, with lots of land.
But now he had something else to be dissatisfied about.
He couldn’t see why he was working so hard for someone else.
He didn’t see the point anymore.
He wasn’t sure if he should pack it all in and quit the rat race.
Work on the land, be self-sufficient.
He was dissatisfied.
Which seems to be the human condition.
We’re dissatisfied about something.
Everything would be alright if only we could fix it.
So we fix it.
But everything isn’t alright.
Because now we have to find something else to be dissatisfied about.
I think this is because we’ve all bought the Hollywood myth.
That dissatisfaction is a good thing.
We need dissatisfaction because it’s what drives us to succeed.
We think, if we stop being dissatisfied we’ll stop trying.
So we hang on to our dissatisfaction like a security blanket.
It’s what’s known in America as ‘The Protestant Ethic’.
Too much enjoyment is a bad thing.
Which means we’d feel guilty if we were satisfied.
So we have dissatisfaction built into our core.
Like a neurosis.
It’s always at the back of our minds.
If we get satisfied we’ll get lazy.
Because dissatisfaction is the motor that drives us to succeed.
That’s what the myth tells us.
But I’m not sure that’s true.
Don’t get me wrong.
I love to work.
At least, I love the work I do.
And I assume there are other people who love the work they do too.
But working because you love it is very different to working from fear.
Working from fear is similar to living from fear.
Being frightened about what you’re missing out on.
What should you be doing that you aren’t?
Should you be working harder, making more money?
Or should you be having more fun, more parties, more sex?
Or should you be meditating on a mountaintop in India?
Whatever you should be doing, this can’t be it.
Well, one thing is certain.
While we’re wondering about all these things, we’re not doing them.
And we’re also not enjoying what we are doing.
So we’re creating dissatisfaction without satisfying it.
Is that sensible?
How about looking at it this way.
That dissatisfaction is just random input that we have to deal with.
We deal with random input all the time.
Fear of the dark.
Fear of hospitals.
Fear of failure.
Fear of looking stupid.
This dissatisfaction is just another one of those.
In Singapore they have a Chinese expression for it, “Kia Soo”.
It means “Fear of missing out.”
That’s what runs most people’s lives.
Fear of missing out on what someone else might have.
Fear that someone may get something you didn’t.
Kia Soo.
These are the people who are rushing everywhere.
That push in front of you in a queue, on the tube, or the bus.
Cut in front of you in a traffic jam.
People who are driven by insecurity, dissatisfaction.
So here’s the paradox.
We choose to feel dissatisfied.
Then we feel bad about being dissatisfied.
How much sense does that make?
Surely, if we buy the myth that dissatisfaction is the motor for achievement, then we should feel good about being dissatisfied.
If we don’t buy that myth, why do we choose to feel dissatisfied?
That way we can only end up like my friend.
Constantly dissatisfied about being dissatisfied.
Ok, I officialy love you after this post.
provato - 6 October 2010 1:03 pm
“Kia Soo” must start in childhood as my 9 month old prefers not to nap during the day incase he misses the party that’s going on outside of his crib…!
Cathy Bennett - 6 October 2010 1:31 pm
If something is not ‘right’, I will feel dissatisfied and will try to change it at some point. Dissatisfaction is a good thing. Or should I say ‘can’ be a good thing?
The point for me is: What am I dissatisfied about.
I certainly do not have feelings of dissatisfaction because I do not own a house abroad. Sure, a house in France would be nice to have. Or maybe it would not. There is this attachment a house abroad brings, or any house for that matter. I might want the freedom to go to my favourite destination whenever I want, but I might end up with a bundle of responsibilites and then maybe thinking, okay, I got this house, now I should go there. Then maybe feeling bad about feeling dissatisfied…
What do we need? What do we want? For which underlying reasons?
“These are the people who are rushing everywhere.
That push in front of you in a queue, on the tube, or the bus.
Cut in front of you in a traffic jam.”
I would argue these people are dirven by egoism and are anti-social. Well, if they are not totally pressed for time. But then, who is not pressed for time nowadays?
NOG - 6 October 2010 2:07 pm
Either you’ve been reading Montaigne or you are him reincarnated (he must be pleased not to be French). Accept life as it is. I’ve found that when you do that, it annoys people.
Choller21 - 6 October 2010 2:21 pm
Sorry but Dave i find this a little misleading in a sense. Are u saying one should be comfortable, satisfied at where one is even if its at the bottom of the pack ? Doesn’t disatisfaction drive u to be on top, to be the best to achieve more. My CD once told me the day i get comfortable is the day, i will stop striving for the best. Have seen guys satisfied with their job and moved know where, got nowhere in their career. But still it all boils down to………nahhh dnt know how to put it ………….and Choller21 its not accepting once life thats a chickening out….
Chomo - 6 October 2010 3:08 pm
@Choller21: Who are you talking to?
NOG - 6 October 2010 3:15 pm
As someone who bought a KIA last year, I am now frightened that the name of the car means fear. Also Dave, I want your friends problems. I’ll take his house in France and he can have my crap studio apartment in New York with the car alarms blaring all night long right outside.
Cal - 6 October 2010 3:18 pm
Hi Dave,
I’m sure there are plenty of people just like your friend.
They’ve all got ‘little men in their head’ controlling their lives.
I used to be like it too, but I have learnt to change.
Happiness and Contentment are two completely different things.
The ‘little man in the head’ uses to divide our thinking.
People often squander contentment in the race for so-called happiness.
Instant gratification is neither happiness or contentment.
It’s a temporary appeasement of a condition.
This in turn makes people more restless, irritable, and discontent.
that’s how ‘the little man’ wins.
Your friend probably can never be still.
He is constantly on the road of more.
So whatever pleases him temporarily,
will never please him in the long run.
In the race to find happiness he is blind to all the things that could make him content.
If he became content, then peace of mind and happiness would follow.
But of course that takes precious time.
And he hasn’t got any of that because ‘the little man’ keeps egging him on.
Who can live in two houses at once?
Better to have one house and be comfortable than live half a life in both in misery.
It’s just an overseas decorating headache.
The grass is always greener on the other side.
I am often discontent.
I was discontent yesterday.
I didn’t know how to solve a particular problem.
So I gave time time.
I did something most people find very hard to do.
I did nothing.
I let go of the problem, and let it unravel itself.
Things usually do if we give time time.
I didn’t want to go to work the other day.
But I did.
99% of life is just about turning-up.
People in the World are becoming increasingly unhappy with their lot.
Someone I know has been let off work because his boss depresses him.
Neighbours envy me working on my allotment.
Everyone thinks it’s easier digging earth than it is doing a highly paid job.
It is not.
They are all slaves of the pound note.
I’m a slave to the mud.
I didn’t choose not to be.
It’s just my lot right now.
But when offered freedom from slavery of the dollar.
(‘Come down the allotment for a couple of hours’)
Friends are always too busy!
I see the same terror in their eyes every time.
Ooh! Hard work!!@*?
We can never satisfy our insides,
by comparison with other’s outsides.
This just creates envy without reason.
A great soul sickness.
Sure, sometimes I’d like a ‘wedge’ in my pocket,
but it’s not the be-all and end-all of life.
Life is much richer than a few sheets of transferrable paper.
Sometimes I go to the allotment and do very little.
Its simply a place where I can lose myself.
And when I lose myself, and think of others,
Life is abundant.
Yesterday I phoned a friend.
I had back ache.
My friend told me about his back.
He hurt it 10 years ago in a Canoeing accident.
Stuck between a submerged tree and his canoe on a fast flooded river,
the canoe snapped in half.
The ensuing pressure was the equivalent of a Mini Car on his back.
He’s been in constant pain for 10 years.
My back didn’t feel half as bad after that phonecall.
So… I tell myself “Expect nothing.”
Then a smile from a stranger is plenty and my cup overflows.
You can’t buy that feeling for all the money in the world.
I dont want to go to work today.
But I must.
And I will.
And I will tell my ‘little discontened man in the head’ to clear-off.
And he will.
Because today I am in charge.
And if that ‘little man in the head’ says ‘no no no’
I take him to work with me and tell him: “I’m giving the worst job to him!.
‘Now, Get on with it’ and he runs like the wind.
And tomorrow I won’t remember a reason why I didn’t want to go today.
Because tomorrow is another day.
So there isn’t any reason to let the ‘little man in the head’ win.
And if he comes back, I’ll give him the worst job tomorrow too!
Digging my allotment! (LOL!)
Kevin Gordon - 6 October 2010 3:20 pm
Very well said. It is also a sad part of the human condition. I know its worse in the US than in Europe, but it exists in all of us. Maybe it will change when we live a lot longer. Patience in life is the hardest thing to learn because we have a finite time here. Gets worse as we age. Fortunes are built on this human problem.
Howie at Sky Pulse Media - 6 October 2010 3:56 pm
“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom” Kierkegaard
Nat - 6 October 2010 3:58 pm
Excellent Nat.
As Sartre famously said “We are condemned to be free.”
Nog:
I think Choller 21 was commenting on my post, at least I hope so.
Chomo:
I don’t think it’s bad to be dissatisfied as long as you choose to be dissatisfied.
Then you own your dissatisfaction instead of it owning you.
dave - 6 October 2010 4:05 pm
Dave,
Nice one, I’m with Paul:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLFYx6xlhB0
Ciaran
Ciaran McCabe - 6 October 2010 5:36 pm
I was commenting on Dave’s post.
Choller21 - 6 October 2010 5:50 pm
We have a similar thing in this country, certainly in marketing and advertising terms, anyway. Keeping up with the Joneses.
George - 6 October 2010 5:59 pm
I’m with Mick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CqVYPVCR9M
john w. - 6 October 2010 8:47 pm
I agree Ciaran, I’m with Paul.
Dave Trott - 6 October 2010 11:10 pm
My daughter suffers from this. We call it FOMO. (fear of missing out)
Ben R - 6 October 2010 11:55 pm
@Cal, “Kia” in certain Chinese dialects means “scared”. Literal translation of “Kia Soo” is “scared to loose” (out on whatever is happening around/at the moment).
Robin. - 7 October 2010 5:23 am
Great stuff,
Fear of failure is what drove David Ogilvy on.
A blank sheet of paper was his ultimate fear.
whereas I guess to Dave a blank sheet of paper
represents a golden opportunity to make
something inherently dull, interesting.
Only he knows what he thinks.
If you want to see how an engine works,
best take it apart and rebuild it.
To see what all the component parts do:-
They say analysis is paralysis.
Scientists take components apart,
but very few stand back to look at the bigger picture
the ones who do win a Nobel Prize, D&Ad, or Circle.
Same for Psychologists and Admen.
The parts roadblock their mind to clear thought.
The answer is not in the parts, but in the sum total.
In Advertising, you’re always looking for the big picture.
To do this, one has to take self out of the equasion,
and that’s all about positioning:-
Scenario 1.
Kierkegaard stands on planet earth getting dizzy looking at the Moon.
Scenario 2.
Kierkegaard travels to moon and looks back in awe at planet Earth.
Heaven is all around us if we only pause to notice.
Kevin Gordon - 7 October 2010 8:09 am
I seem to recall that the Singapore Govt wanted to make its people more polite, and so created a cartoon Mr Kiasu, who was supposed to show people how not to behave, pushing in front of queues, taking everything on a buffet table, etc. It was very popular, but had the opposite effect to the one intended. Mr Kiasu became a cult hero, a way to behave, a way to make sure you got everything…
Tom - 11 October 2010 12:05 pm
Northerners, as a generalisation, are never happy unless they are complaining. We are never satisfied. It’s part of our m.o. How else do things improve?!
john w. - 13 October 2010 7:24 pm
interesting that you blame hollywood for disseminating discontentment…
i thought that was the job of advertising
caspar - 15 October 2010 10:23 am