We Evolved to Survive, Not Thrive
We Evolved to Survive, Not Thrive
Why hasn't innovation made us all fit, rich, and happy?
Why are we so unhappy in a world 100x better than what we lived in only a few centuries ago?
Think about the average person in the middle ages, who had a miserable life of hardship.
They did manual labor, lived in essentially a hut, and their life was work, eat, sleep, repeat… and hopefully not die of war or famine.
A thousand years later we’re living a life they would equate to heaven on earth.
Endless fresh food in grocery stores, clean water, hot showers, electricity, cars, and of course the internet and smartphones, giving us unlimited access to all the greatest information in the world.
With all these innovations shouldn’t we be rich, fit, and endlessly happy?
…Quite the opposite.
In many ways our life is better than it’s ever been, but there are serious issues:
Mental health is on a significant decline.
More people now die from obesity than from starvation.
Over half of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
So what gives?
In a time when we should all be happy, healthy, and wealthy… Why are we struggling?
Well I won’t attempt to simplify every reason. There are a thousand factors we could weigh that contribute (politics, economics, social sciences, etc).
But let’s talk a little of what we can control:
We need to overcome some tendencies of our primitive brain, and reconnect to others.
Let me explain.
We evolved in a survival driven world, and when you’re in survival mode you don’t think about setting yourself up for a great future… You’re just trying to make it through the day.
And it might seem like we’re far from our primitive roots, but the impulses are still there.
Consider our struggles with food. There are places in the world today where starvation is a real threat, but in Western countries we’re literally eating ourselves to death…
Why can’t we just eat a few chips and put the bag down, or have a bite of a dessert and save the rest for later? Why the hell does junk food have such a hold over people?
Because we didn’t evolve for supernormal stimuli. (Which means stimuli way above what the natural world provides)
When we get a taste of food that is fattier, sweeter, and saltier than anything we would ever encounter in nature… our brain isn’t equipped to moderate it.
And so, (for some people), it becomes addicting.
Obviously an appetite for high calorie foods serves us well in a world of scarcity, but in a world of abundance our urge to eat, eat, eat, hurts us.
Our money struggles also tie into our impulse control. Saving and investing money isn’t something we evolved for, but our primitive brain loves novelty, and loves to play status games. The more options you give us, the more we crave.
Add to that a culture of consumerism, FOMO, and constant advertising telling us to BUY BUY BUY, and it’s no wonder we can’t stop spending.
What about mental health? Why are we less happy than ever, despite our modern luxuries?
In the book “Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope”, Johann Hari goes down the research rabbit hole addressing many of the simple, but critical, reasons for the mental health crisis we see today.
Things like:
Despite being more connected, people are lonelier than ever.
(15% of men and 10% of women reported not having even one close friend)We struggle with purpose. We used to live simple lives with simple goals – he hunts, you fish, I make the clothes, etc. – but now it’s not so clear. What am I contributing? Does my life matter? These are things we struggle with.
We’re disconnected from the natural world. People spend 8+ hours a day getting nothing but artificial light, staring at a screen, and breathing filtered air. I’m not getting woo-woo here, but we need fresh air, sunlight, and time outdoors. We weren’t made to live in cages.
Our brain is a survival machine. It knows how to keep us alive, but when it comes to navigating and finding meaning in a changing world… it’s just not something we’re good at.
So yes, life has never been better, but it’s a life we don’t know how to live…
What’s the solution?
1. Understand that we have “two brains”, the higher, and the lower brain… Know which one to trust and when.
When you’re getting in an elevator at night and your gut tells you the guy in the corner with the hoodie on looks suspicious… maybe take the stairs.
On the other hand, when you get home after a hard day at work and your brain tells you to binge eat ice cream and blow your savings online shopping… definitely ignore that.
In both scenarios it’s our lower brain guiding us. The part of our mind that’s intuitive, instinctual, and focused on survival. It aims to protect us, but sometimes it misses the mark.
Luckily we can use our higher brain, (the rational/logical brain), to keep the lower brain in check.
This takes practice, but through mindfulness, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and other techniques, we can learn to tap into our higher brain at will and not be controlled by our impulses.
2. Understand that we can change our brains.
Survival comes natural to us.
What doesn’t come naturally though is happiness, a calm spirit, or an intellectual and clear thinking mind. These are things we have to cultivate on our own.
But thanks to the magic of Neuroplasticity, we can literally remodel our brain through our thoughts, actions, and the things we read/learn.
This means if you struggle with negative self talk, through practice you can become more positive.
If you’re anxious and depressed, you can become calmer and more content.
If you overeat, you can improve your relationship to food.
It might take years of conscious effort, but it’s more than worth it.
And it means you are by no means limited to who you are right now.
There are people like Rich Roll, (famous podcaster and ultrarunner), who completely change their lives well after the point when most consider it “too late” to change.
You don’t change by magic or by sheer force of will, but by making a choice to change, choosing a vision of who you want to be, and taking small steps towards that vision every day.
3. Reconnect your “lost connections”.
“Once you understand that depression is to a significant degree a collective problem caused by something that’s gone wrong in our culture, it becomes obvious that the solutions have to be – to a significant degree – collective, too.” - Johann Hari
I highly recommend Johann Hari’s book to understand more of how the modern world affects our mental health.
The short of it is, at some level we’re all still animals.
And just like animals there are certain inescapable needs that make us feel fulfilled.
Do you know what happens if you get a working breed dog like a German Shepherd, and have it sit around all day with nothing to do?
They get depressed, overweight, anxious, destructive, antisocial, and even aggressive… See the irony? They need a job… a purpose.
And we need our purpose. We need to reconnect with nature, we need people who love and respect us, we need values to drive us and work that inspires us… we need our tribe.
Our world is abundant with things that don’t benefit us – crap to buy, junk to eat, drugs to take – and barren of the things we truly need like connection, meaning, and values.
Our task then is twofold. We have to do the work so we aren’t a victim of our primitive mind. We have to become clearer thinkers, practice mindfulness, recognize our biases and logical shortcomings, and break free from the crazy cycle of impulsiveness our lower self puts us on.
At the same time we need to reconnect to the things inherent to the human experience. We have to build deeper relationships, reconnect with nature, do meaningful work, and find the values that make life worth living.
Only then can we start to thrive in this world, so far from what we evolved for.
Thanks for reading,
- Josh