Putting things into perspective

Our extreme capacity for purpose.

I was fortunate enough to spend some time in Ubud recently. Awesome rice fields and super friendly people.

One of the days I was on the back of a scooter, travelling to one of the more touristy rice fields, and I was chatting to the driver.

His name was Dewa, and he was super friendly. He was really interested in New Zealand, where we were going and what we were doing. We chatted about my work (a boring and short finance chat), and I then I asked him a question.

‘What’s your dream Dewa? what do you want to do?’

And he said something to me that I thought was crazy. He said (in broken English):

‘My dream is to one day buy a car, so I can earn more as a taxi rather than driving people around on a scooter.’

Maybe I’ve over analysed this, but isn’t that crazy?

Of all the things he could have said, his dream is to own a car and be a taxi driver.

Humans have an incredible ability to adapt. I like to think of it as our ability to ‘fit the available space.’

Of the roughly 277M Indonesians, the available space is pretty tight. The potential for aiming up doesn’t extend very far.

My observation was that working in a (likely foreign owned) restaurant seemed as good as it gets for many people. For people like Dewa it’s owning a car. Not to get to a nice, air-conditioned office. Just to drive more people around than he could have otherwise on a scooter.

Being here, and seeing the wealth disparity and general poverty of most Indonesians, helped put into perspective how fortunate I am to have grown up in New Zealand.

Many countries with extremely high populations also rank very low on many indexes relating to quality of life. So to be born here, with a population so low and a quality of life so high is nothing short of a statistical lottery pick.

Stacked on top of this is the fact that I grew up in a warm home with a caring family, access to food, water, education and entertainment whenever I wanted it. I must be in the highest quartile of privileged fucks to have ever walked the earth at any point ever in human history.

As long as I don’t bump into the walls too much, my capacity and potential for aiming upwards is near infinite relative to these people.

It would be a real shame having to look back on my life knowing that I wasted my golden ticket, took everything for granted and got too comfy.

I owe it to Dewa.

Trying to stay grounded, be more mindful, and showing gratitude has really opened my eyes.

Privileges don’t prevent problems. But a burnt coffee, missing your bus, or a rainy walk to work doesn’t seem so terrible.

I don’t think life is nearly as bad as it seems.

Just Something To Consider.