can ’ t get no satisfaction .” We might not even know what we desire next , but be sure that some clever innovator or entrepreneur is going to tell us what we ’ re missing out on !
Yet our planet ’ s resources are finite . Is there a way through this problem ? Yes , and it has much to do with technological progress , public awareness and a free market economy . Parts of the solution include regulation , recycling and dematerialisation . Dematerialisation happens when things we used to use become obsolete or miniaturised . The classic example is the smartphone – the consumer goods and services now available on the average smartphone include : cameras , video recorders , radios , televisions , web browsers , recording studios , GPS navigators , word processors ,
flashlights , board and video games , medical devices , atlases , encyclopaedias , translators , textbooks , and much more . In the very recent past , all these dematerialised goods and services required significant natural resources to produce .
Still , the best solution is to keep our desires and wants in check . Because happiness consists not in having ever more , but in wanting less . Happier people are not preoccupied with what is lacking . They need less because they experience abundance through their senses , deriving pleasure from the simple delights that are in abundance all around .
Of all our possessions , the most valuable is something that cannot be touched : our time . When it is lost , it is gone forever . You cannot turn back time . The number of hours in our days , and the number of days in our lives , is finite . Our respect for the privilege of living is visible in how we utilise our time . Time is precious , irreversible , unrecyclable . Hence we need to live by design , not by default .
What we choose to do with our time is exactly that : a matter of choice . Things can be taken away , but our ability to choose , our free will , can never be taken away from us . Our ability to choose is what makes us human . It cannot be given away ; it can only be forgotten . We do not have to accept the hand that has been dealt to us . Few grasp this fully . It is often easier to blame a situation on someone or something else ( parents , education , the government , an employer , society , a spouse ) than
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