13/08/2026
NOTHING IS EVER ENOUGH ANYMORE!
We have far more options than people did in the past, yet somehow that abundance often leaves us less satisfied. Scarcity gave experiences more meaning because there simply wasn’t that much to choose from. I remember being at school and how we would talk about the same things because there wasn’t much else. KTV, Power Rangers, Channel 80 on DStv in 2002, WWE, football, we all watched the same things and then talked about them endlessly. We watched the same repeated movies on M-Net and would discuss them at length when we saw our friends. Even our friendships were simpler. You had the same small group of friends; you went to their house, played, talked, and did whatever you did together. Now everyone has dozens of friends, and sometimes you don’t even know how close you really are to someone because your best friend has another best friend, who has another best friend. There was something about having fewer options that forced you to actually invest in what was in front of you.
The same thing happened with attraction. You could have that one girl at school or in your neighbourhood whom you thought was unbelievably beautiful. Then you look back years later and think, What the hell did I see? She had goofy teeth, no big bum, no t**s, nothing that would stand out compared with the women we constantly see today. Yet somehow, she was the girl. And now we have access to thousands of objectively more attractive women through Instagram, TikTok, dating apps and the internet, and somehow we can still be dissatisfied. Technology has created this feeling that there is always something better somewhere else: another woman, another city, another opportunity, another holiday, another film, another life. Netflix can give you thousands of movies and somehow you still sit there saying, “There’s nothing to watch.” Back then, there were far fewer things to watch, and somehow we enjoyed what we had more. Even though our choices have expanded exponentially, our time has not. You can still only watch one movie, live in one place, spend time with one person, or pursue one path at a time.
That is the paradox of choice. The more alternatives we have, the more we become aware of all the lives we are not living. Instead of completely experiencing the moment, part of your mind is comparing it to everything else you could be doing. Abundance creates comparison, and comparison creates dissatisfaction. Maybe nostalgia isn’t really about the past being objectively better; maybe it is about how present we were in it. That girl from school wasn’t necessarily more beautiful than the women we see today, and those nights with little money weren’t objectively better than the luxury available to us now. They simply had rarity, attention, uncertainty, and shared experience. Scarcity gave things value. Every choice we make also closes the door on countless alternatives, and that is unavoidable. You cannot live every possible life. You cannot date every person, visit every city, watch every movie, or experience every opportunity. The goal, then, isn’t to find the perfect option because it probably doesn’t exist. It’s to choose something and actually live it. Modern life gives us the illusion of infinite possibilities, but we are still human beings who can only exist in one moment, one place, and one experience at a time. Maybe satisfaction comes less from having more choices and more from finally being able to appreciate the choice we’ve made.
