Maybe ‘Better’ Is the Problem

By: Stuart Knight (Founder and CEO) | April 17, 2026

Do you ever find yourself thinking, “What’s the sense of it all?” As you skim through another news cycle of wars, murders, corruption cases and the latest list of diseases bound to kill us, are you left with a sinking feeling that it’s all pointless?  I know that I feel that way sometimes.  It doesn’t last long, I am a motivational speaker after all, but I do find myself sometimes questioning this game we human beings are playing.

And if I haven’t depressed you enough yet, allow me to also remind you of other negative things we humans face like being overworked, addicted to our devices, over scheduled, always stressed and there never being enough time to do the things we want to do.  Are you still reading?  What’s wrong with you?  Are you a sucker for punishment?  Ha!

God, even writing those words above causes my shoulders to droop a little more, and makes me want to jump into bed and shut myself out from the rest of the world.  I’m not gonna lie.  There have been many times in my life where I’ve literally gone under the covers and just fallen asleep as a mechanism for dealing with the overwhelm I’ve felt in that moment.  I suspect you may have done the same?

I’d argue that not experiencing these kinds of feelings puts you into one of two camps.  The first is that you have entered a state of enlightenment and live in a space of Zen.  If that's you, congratulations, and should we ever meet in the future, I’ll introduce myself by saying, “Hi, I’m jealous!”  The person who falls into the second camp of people that do not feel that level of overwhelm from time to time are also referred to as aliens from another planet!  They look like humans, but they are not, and you can tell by the fact that they don’t think about cashing it all in and moving to an island.

As you can probably tell by now, I fall into neither camp, and recently found myself taking a very deep dive into wondering what decisions I should make to bring greater meaning to my life, and to that of my family.  Perhaps this is something every man in his early 50’s experiences?  That, and having to get up to pee at 3am every night! Now, I get that on the surface, most of the so-called boxes of happiness are checked, so why would I be asking such questions?

Well, that’s just it.  I’ve checked the boxes, and have been lucky enough to build the life we’re told others dream of, but I still can’t shake this notion that there’s an even richer experience of life to be had, which is what causes these questions to surface.  Lately, the time I’ve been afforded to stare out the window of airplanes or sit quietly alone in hotel rooms, I feel like I’ve been getting closer to the answer.

Slowly, I’m beginning to see how much I, and to a further extent most of the Western world, complicate things.  It’s as if we’ve become addicted to making everything “better”, when in fact it was already perfect.  A good example of that can be seen in what we’ve done to coffee.  For thousands of years, people drank coffee black, and were able to enjoy every sip.  Then, somewhere along the way we decided that wasn’t good enough, and that we had to make it better.  So we made it extra hot, then we added foam, then we added caramel, then we added sprinkles, then we added a shark tooth, etc.  And along the way, we kept looking for ways to make it better to the point of begging the question, “Can we really enjoy coffee any more knowing there might be something better?” 

I think that example alone illustrates what we do in most categories of our lives.  We need a better home, better clothes, better vacations, better partners, better cash flow, better followers on social media, etc.  And I believe that this need for “better” can lead to wars, murder, corruption, disease and more.   Not always directly, but if you look more closely, you can draw the line between such things.

Knowing this, perhaps the overwhelm we feel, or losing hope may derive from the hope for something better, and not getting it.  Maybe if we wanted less, we’d be less interested in engaging in things that cause people to feel disillusioned, not good enough and plain old sad.  What would happen if people stopped wanting better, and started enjoying what they had?  And I’m not talking about wanting the basics such as good health, shelter, education, food, etc. but rather the stuff that we think we need, but actually don’t.  Could that decrease the overwhelm we feel individually, and perhaps even lessen all that drives the negativity that overwhelms us locally, nationally and globally?

The truth is that I don’t know the answer to that question.  All I do know is that when I try it myself, it seems to work.

Much Love,

Stuart

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