Recalculating the “Progress Equation” Before It’s Too Late
Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot. Wouldn’t you like to get away? Sometimes you want to go, Where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came…” ~ Theme from “Cheers”
Hmmm, is the wheel of progress spinning out of control?
The lyrics from the theme song of the popular 80’s TV sitcom “Cheers” pop into my head more and more often these days. Yes, it’s partly because the series ran for a decade and the catchy song is imprinted on my brain.
But it’s also because it seems somewhat paradoxical. “The world today” described in the song was thirty years ago. I look back now on those days and wish life was as simple now as, in retrospect, it seemed to me it was back then. Then I look into the crystal ball and cringe at the prospect of how complex and taxing life might be thirty years from now.
I’ve come to believe that there is no more ironic word in our language than progress. There is no disputing that tremendous progress has been made on many fronts in our lifetime – none more so than the frontiers of technology. However, to quote Martin Luther King, Jr:
“All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.”
The progress that has been made in technology has made us heavily dependent on that technology and slaves to the pace of life it breeds. We’ve had to ramp up the speed of our brains to keep pace with it. Yes, our brains are capable of that speed. But moving at that speed 24/7 takes a heavy toll.
It has also multiplied the output capacity of each individual. One person can do today what it took three people to do thirty years ago. But that means that each of us is competing to be that one person to keep the paycheques coming in.
The same equation applies to companies. One company today can supply what three companies could thirty years ago. So now we’re competing to be the one person in six that keeps the paycheques coming in.
This ever tightening web of competition, combined with the exponential growth of complexity and the breakneck RPMs we’re required to rev our lives up to, is worrisome to me. I have a difficult time conceiving of it as progress.
A wheel that keeps getting smaller and smaller, and spins faster and faster, is the reigning metaphor for progress in our lives today. But we’re dangerously close to the day when the wheel controls us instead of us controlling it. We need to recalculate the progress equation before that happens.
In the words of novelist and poet C.S. Lewis:
“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the mean who turn backs soonest is the most progressive.”
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views LiteraryAwards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog . Visit www.smashwords.com to download a free preview of the e-book version.
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