Introduction | The Paradox We’ve All Experienced
An automatic coffee maker, a dishwasher, online shopping with one click, ready-made meals that heat up in minutes. Tools that were supposed to make life simpler have now become part of our daily lives. But if we ask ourselves, “Have we really become calmer?” the answer is often negative.
This question revives an old paradox. More than eighty years ago, a British newspaper wrote: “Our age is saturated with tools to make life easier. But has life really become less burdensome?” Today, with more advanced technologies, we still have no clear answer to this question.
Examining the Issue | When “Comfort” Is Mistaken for “Calm”
Despite remarkable income growth in industrialized countries, people’s levels of happiness and satisfaction have remained almost constant. This phenomenon, now called the “Easterlin Paradox,” shows that income above a certain threshold (roughly $15,000 to $20,000 in today’s prices) rarely contributes to greater happiness.
Research shows that between 1975 and 1995, real per capita income in the United States increased by nearly 40 percent. During the same period, Americans “acquired plasma TVs, PlayStation consoles, and a third car in their garages, yet they are not one bit more satisfied with their lives than they were three decades earlier.”
But why does this happen?
Analysis | Three Reasons for the Gap Between Comfort and Calm
1. Habituation; When the New Level Becomes “Normal”
The most important reason offered for the Easterlin Paradox is “hedonic adaptation.” Every person gradually becomes accustomed to everything, including a higher standard of living. Along with increasing income and resources, “perceived needs and demands increase accordingly.”
Simply put: a washing machine, a dishwasher, or online shopping becomes part of the “normal” after a few weeks. They no longer produce the initial feeling of comfort. So we are always running toward the next tool, without ever reaching a point where we can say, “Now I am calm.”
2. Technology Takes Our Calm Away
Technology has made life faster, but this speed has taken away our opportunity for reflection and presence in the moment. New research on “technostress” shows that digitalization, despite all its benefits, brings “anxiety, burnout, job insecurity, cognitive overload, and digital dependency.”
Governance experts emphasize that “welfare and satisfaction are not the same concept. Welfare is largely related to measurable resources, but life satisfaction depends on a set of material and non-material factors.”
A person may have a better car, reach their destination faster, and have access to high-speed internet, “but at the same time feel that their future is vague, they don’t trust others enough, or they lack the opportunity to influence their living environment.”
3. Comparison; The Deadly Poison of Satisfaction
Another factor that intensifies this cycle is social comparison. A researcher in applied ethics says about this: “When a society has no welfare or resources at all, people have no expectations. But if welfare and resources are incomplete or scarce, they say why is it so little.”
This statement shows that satisfaction is a relative phenomenon. A person doesn’t only compare their current resources with the past, but also measures them against “expectations, others’ resources, and the image they have of the future.”
Limitations of Existing Perspectives
Of course, it should be noted that the relationship between welfare and satisfaction is more complex than a linear one. In poor countries, increasing income genuinely raises well-being, because “money satisfies the need for food, housing, and other basic needs.” But in wealthy countries, this relationship becomes severely weakened.
Also, some research shows that income loss has a more negative effect on mental health than income gain has a positive effect. Therefore, one cannot say that material welfare is “ineffective”; rather, its effect is conditional and limited.
Conclusion | From “Comfort” to “Calm”
The problem isn’t that tools of comfort are bad. The problem is that we have mistaken “comfort” for “calm.” Life has become more comfortable, but not calmer. Because calm doesn’t come from eliminating hardship; it comes from presence, meaning, and connection.
Researchers emphasize that “real development happens when external progress is accompanied by a feeling of inner and social improvement.” A road can reduce the distance between two cities, but it doesn’t necessarily reduce the distance between people. Technology can make communication easier, but it doesn’t build trust on its own.
If today you feel that your life is more comfortable than before but not calmer, perhaps it’s time to return from “comfort” to “calm.” Stop the speed and, for the first time, truly listen to yourself.
Sources
– Kasser & Diener (2008). *A Certain Amount of Money Is a Necessary but Insufficient Condition for Happiness*. Cited in: Rahbord Farhang, Nos. 12-13.
– Easterlin, Richard (1995). *The Easterlin Paradox: Why Doesn’t Economic Growth Lead to Greater Happiness?*
– Diener & Seligman (1997). *Longitudinal Research on Happiness and Income*. Cited in: Rahbord Farhang.
– Argyle, Michael (2004). *The Psychology of Happiness*. Persian translation.
– Technostress and Digitalization (2025). *Psycho-Social Effects and AI-Based Interventions*. Psikguncel Journal.
– Amini, Mahmoud (2025). *The Paradox of Welfare and Satisfaction; Why Modernity Didn’t Make Us Calmer*. Mehr News Agency.
– Emadi, Abdullah (2025). *Comparison Is the Deadly Poison of Satisfaction*. Mehr News Agency.
– Thomson, Rachel M. et al. (2024). *The Causal Relationship Between Income, Happiness, and Mental Health*. The Lancet-Public Health.
– Wairarapa Times-Age Newspaper (1939). *A Calm Mind: Has Life Become Less Burdensome?*
