The paradox of plenty

Smooth apes with brains still wired for scarcity are lurching around in a world of plenty.

And by plenty, we’re talking overabundance. Wishes instantly fulfilled. More calories within reach than our ancestors could have chased down in a month.

See, life is a paradox, and the paradox of plenty is this: You’d think that instantly gratified desires would be a recipe for happiness. But the opposite is true.

Meet Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke. She’s an addiction-research specialist who also maintains private practice. Her clients are mostly Silicon Valley IT executives and academics and entrepreneurs. The winners of the game, in other words. The richest slice of the richest population that ever lived. Yet they don’t feel like winners. They report that their mental health has cratered.

And they’re not alone. Why should it be that depression, anxiety and suicide are rising fastest in the richest nations in the world?

Anna Lembke