"When efficiency becomes the supreme virtue of a culture, every aspect of human existence is forced to justify itself in terms of future payoff.
Relationships are reframed as 'networking,' rest becomes 'recovery for better performance,' and nature becomes 'stress management.'
This transactional lens strips the world of its intrinsic value, leaving nothing that is worth doing simply for its own sake.
When everything must serve a purpose beyond itself, life becomes an endless treadmill of preparation, where no experience is ever allowed to be an end in itself."
-Oliver Burkeman
Reminds me of a Tim Ferris quote:
“Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for 'realistic' goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming.”
Go where most people aren’t.
“I may speak the English Language better than the Chinese language, but I’ll never be an Englishman, not in a thousand generations.”
– Lee Kuan Yew (Founder of Singapore)