Too much of everything
Life these days feels... well, too much. Not in a dramatic, everything-is-on-fire kind of way, but in a quietly overwhelming, can't-decide-what-to-watch-on-Netflix way. We live in an age of abundance — of options, opinions, lifestyles — and yet, many of us feel more stuck than ever.
Take, for example, our personal lives. Choosing a path in life, whether it's a career or a relationship, used to be hard — but now it feels like navigating a labyrinth with a thousand exits, all equally uncertain. And it’s not just about deciding what to do or who to be with. It’s about being constantly bombarded with the sense that, somewhere out there, a better option exists — if only we could find it.
Even something as fundamental as forming a family has become complicated. It’s not just “man meets woman” anymore (and thank goodness, honestly — diversity is a good thing). But that variety, that beautiful complexity, has a shadow side. The sheer scope of it all can lead to a kind of emotional paralysis. People hesitate. They overthink. They scroll endlessly through dating apps, haunted by the idea that the next swipe might be the one.
I recently came across some reflections on Japanese society — how, in many parts of the country, people have simply stopped dating, stopped marrying, stopped building families. Not out of protest or ideology, but out of sheer disinterest. A lack of drive. Maybe even a quiet despair.
And it’s not just Japan. We see echoes of this in the West, in Europe and the U.S. Societies that have maximized freedom, flexibility, and choice are starting to wrestle with a strange side effect: people unsure of what they want, who they are, or where they belong.
It reminds me of that strange, slightly unsettling behavioral experiment — the “mouse utopia.” Scientists built a perfect environment for mice: no predators, plenty of food, comfy nesting space. And for a while, things boomed. But then... they collapsed. The mice stopped socializing, stopped reproducing. Their little utopia became a quiet graveyard of potential.
Now, I’m not saying we’re mice. But I do wonder: in smoothing out all the rough edges of life, in giving ourselves unlimited options and removing so many challenges, have we also dulled something essential? That push to connect. To commit. To choose, even when it’s hard.
There’s no easy answer here. Just a thought. A kind of quiet curiosity — maybe even a concern — that somewhere in the maze of modern life, we’ve lost touch with what it means to truly want something. Or someone.