How to be part of the 2%
2% of people take the stairs when an escalator is nearby.
When faced with a choice between the comfortable, and the uncomfortable, what is your natural preference?
A recent study found that just 2% of people take the stairs when an escalator is nearby. I see this in evidence most days during a typical commute through London. In many instances, it might make sense; if you’re tired after a long day at work, or you’re laden with bags, or navigating small children through the underground labyrinth, an escalator can seem like the sensible option.
But what happens when it’s just you, and you’re presented with the choice or exerting slightly more effort over the more comfortable option?
Historically, conserving energy whenever we had the chance made a lot of sense. For the vast majority of human existence, life has been incredibly hard and energy sapping for the vast majority of people.
Tens of thousands of years ago, hunting animals required trekking for mile upon mile through challenging terrain to wear down your target. Foraging for nuts or berries required similar perseverance. Keeping yourself readied to take flight or defend your territory was a constant concern.
As societies progressed into the farming evolution, and later the industrial one, most people’s lives were still represented by relentless toil and hard labour. There’s a reason why ‘running’ only emerged as a hobby in the 1950s in the USA; we never needed it before. Daily life kept people not only ‘in shape’, but it was so demanding that it kept people exhausted. Comfort was a luxury good.
Therefore, it made sense that when we were presented with an opportunity to rest, we took it.
Conserving energy was a life skill. You didn’t know when you might need to be able to summon the resources to flee or fight at a moment’s notice.
Modern-day tribal people have been found to laugh at the idea that western civilisations have had to invent ‘jogging’; they simply ask ‘why?’. They cannot fathom the idea of expending energy unnecessarily. Their lifestyles, like ours for most of our existence, demand them to manage their energy levels meticulously.
But we’ve created a modern world that has prioritised comfort above all else.
The majority of companies, in their quest for innovation, are obsessed with the question of “How can we make people’s lives easier?”.
And you can see why: we are predisposed through our evolution to seek out the comfortable when we can.
But the abundant level of available comfort today has created what scientists would call an ‘evolutionary mismatch’. This happens when our natural desires, that once made sense, start to work against us.
In other words, our natural desire to seek comfort is now working against us because our modern world offers far too much of it.
Diabetes, rates of obesity, the prevalence of heart diseases can all be explained in many cases by the fact that we simply spend far too much time conserving energy, and not enough expending it. Our new ‘natural balance’ has been knocked out of sync by the world we’ve created around us.
In man’s attempts to solve for a particular problem - how can I bring more comfort into my life? - we’ve created a set of new ones;
How can we over-ride our natural desire to seek comfort in a world that’s become too comfortable?
Michael Easter explores these ideas in his book, The Comfort Crisis. The thesis being that, we live in a world where we need to choose our problems more carefully. We need to choose the path of harder resistance, in order to re-align or evolutionary instincts with what is good for us in today’s conditions.
The modern world wants us to believe that we can design away all of our problems. Wherever a tension exists, a solution can be found. And the risk behind this is some people might expect that there will exist a point in time where all of their problems might be solved. But this is an impossible state.
A Harvard study found that as people solve problems in life, they don’t become more satisfied, they simply start searching for the next problem. It’s a concept called ‘prevelance-induced concept change’, or more simply - Problem Creep.
And that can be a deeply disturbing thing to acknowledge.
Today’s world wants you to believe that every problem can be solved. There’s an app, or website, or product for that.
The harsh reality no one wants to tell you is that your world will always have problems.
The way to improve your world in this modern context is to choose the problems you invite into your life.
Choosing to take the stairs over an escalator is a ‘problem’ to be solved. But choosing the seemingly counter-intuitive concept of expending more energy is something we need to incorporate into our lives because of our modern world.
Choosing these kinds of ‘problems’ could make us more physically active and stronger over time, something that is required in a world that wants you to only be comfortable all of the time. A world that wants to trick you into thinking that it’s possible to make your problems disappear. A reality that doesn’t exist.
But, of course, there is a silver lining. When we solve problems, we generate happiness for ourselves.
That’s why we’re hard-wired to seek them out. Tackling and solving problems gives us a sense of progress, and satisfaction. Think about the feeling of replacing a plug yourself, instead of calling in an electrician. Or painting your living room, instead of getting a decorator in. When we solve problems ourselves, we feel good.
In a world where problems will always exist, establishing your pathway to satisfaction lies in the ability to choose the problems that you want to have in your life.
Where can you take the stairs over the escalator more often? Where can you be part of the 2%?