The medium chill
It is well-documented that employees are working longer hours for less pay, but some employees are being compensated by being allowed more flex time, working from home, and even four day work weeks. And for many in our generation, this may be well worth the trade off.The medium chill involves what economists call satisficing: abandoning the quest for the ideal in favor of the good-enough. It means stepping off the aspirational treadmill, foregoing some material opportunities and accepting some material constraints in exchange for more time to spend on relationships and experiences.
It turns out, though, that satisficing doesn't come easy to us human beings. We have an extremely hard time saying, "okay, this is good enough." Why?
Part of the reason is that we hate closing off opportunities, and that's what satisficing feels like. We like to keep our options open in case something better comes along.
But will a better thing make us happier? We're inclined to think, "of course it would!" But that's because, as social psychologists have come to understand quite well, we're not very good at predicting what will make us happy. In fact, we suck at it.
It makes sense in a lot of ways. Many in our generation grew up in relative affluence compared to past generations, so we have never had to worry about food on the table or clothes on our backs. What we perhaps lacked was having two parents around all the time. So are we reversing the trend? Spending more time with friends and family and less time at the office because we make "just enough"? Or is it just a way to rationalize away laziness or a lack of ambition? And is this bad for our economy if our citizens are not driven to achieve? Will we still have innovation and growth? Just curious about your own experiences, if you are really career-driven, or you find yourself content with "just enough" and seek fulfillment through other means. I don't really think there's a right answer and its nice that we even are fortunate to have the option (for those of us that do.)