The Lie of More: Why Contentment Is Rebellion Now
If you’ve had the good fortune to travel to Europe you may have noticed that the European pace of life seems slower. Shops usually close at 6 (except for the big multi-national chain ones). In some countries like Germany, Austria or Switzerland or Poland shops are closed on Sundays. People sit at cafés without laptops, spending time together. Time seems to flow slower as if the moment of togetherness could be stretched like a rubber band to whatever length needed. Add to that the 4-6 weeks of paid vacations people often take in 2 or 3 week chunks to recharge and rest. Vacations no one feels guilty about and no one apologizes for taking. Compare that with the average of 10–15 paid days (if offered at all) in the US. No wonder my European friends wonder why the Americans work such long hours.
Work is the center of gravity in the US. Look busy even if you have nothing important to do. Incessant activity is worn like a badge of honor. Rest feels like (moral) failure and vacations are ridden with guilt. Everything seems to revolve around making money – even your hobbies are monetized. Even your free time is optimized to accomplish more. Crazy, no?
People are burned out, anxious, and addicted to the next hit of achievement. Here’s the truth we don’t hear very often: We’re not just living in a faster culture—we’re living in a system that is built on artificially (and artfully) created discontent.1
This goes well beyond buying stuff we don’t need. The system needs us to need it. The system is so engrained into our way of life that few of us are even aware of its existence. We take it as the norm.
Technique: The God You Didn’t Know You Worship
The French philosopher, sociologist and lay theologian Jacques Ellul2 pointed out that modern society is shaped by the rise of technique—not just machines, but a way of life obsessed with efficiency, speed, and control. Ellul wasn’t just a philosopher—he was a prophet hiding in plain sight. While most people worried about machines replacing jobs, Ellul saw something far more dangerous: machines replacing meaning. He defined technique as the worship of whatever is most efficient, scalable, optimized, and measurable. Once a society adopts technique as its master, it doesn’t stop at industry, but allows it to spread to other areas of life as well. Morality becomes pretty much a system of outcomes. Truth becomes what works instead of a standard to submit to. Faith turns into a tool to get things. People become equal to data that can be harvested from them, contentment is rare and rest itself becomes wasteful.
And money? Money becomes the most efficient technique of all. Because every decision, every activity is weighed in terms of a number - how much does something cost or how much can it bring in. Every value is reduced to a cost and every purpose to a profit.
“In a technological society, everything is permitted, but nothing has meaning.” — Jacques Ellul
If you are one of the people who senses something is off, or feels exhausted by our way of life, this may be why.
You and I weren’t created to live the most efficiently we can. We were made with limitations. We were created for worship and for wonder. The preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes put it so:
”I perceived that there is nothing better for [people] to do than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.” Ecclesiastes 3:12–13
The highest goal of life is probably closer to something like discovering who we were made to be, growing in our own unique way of life, “growing in favor with God and men,” and building relationships starting with our relationship with Jesus Christ.
Optimizing, monetizing, or producing are not bad things to learn or pursue. But taken out of balance, can and does create pressure to perform and to compare ourselves with others, especially the successful ones among us. We look and see that we don’t measure up. The next step down is being discouraged and the next is being discontent. Without some balancing, health-producing mechanism like regular prayer, genuine nurturing friendships, and strong family relationships we may end up getting lost, feeling bad about ourselves, trying harder, and getting nowhere faster.
I do not believe that poverty is a virtue or that being rich is a sin. I don’t buy the idea that the poor walk on a morally higher ground than the rich. The communist doctrine of class warfare is evil. Inequality is not a bad thing, getting ahead financially as far and as fast as we are able to is good as long as we don’t become jerks in the process or sacrifice the rest of our lives to the god of money.
How to Escape the System That Owns You
Escaping a system that feeds on your discontentment isn’t about tweaking your budget or meditating more. It’s about a total reorientation of life and it starts with the way you see the world.
The first step is brutal clarity, which presupposes that you can see what stays invisible to a lot of people. You can’t fight a lie you're not aware of. Next you have to name the system for what it is, because you can’t defeat something that you are still half-defending. If you still believe that endless hustle is noble, that busyness is a moral value, or that your worth depends on and can be measured in dollars, followers, or milestones, you’re not free—you’re part of the system that is feeding off of you. Recognition is the beginning of resistance.
Next, stop feeding the system with your attention and your energy. It may mean you unfollow some accounts (oh, the fear of missing out), cut off the media that trains you to want what you don’t need. Turning off your TV with all the stupid ads that force feed you solutions to problems you don’t have. Say no to every manufactured urgent “opportunity,” or anything that demands you sacrifice your peace for progress or security or whatever else is being peddled at the time. The world wants you addicted to “more” and “better.” You fight back by choosing “enough.” Simple contentment turns into a rebellion. And rebellion is a good thing when obedience means staying enslaved.
Resistance is rejecting the old and choosing something new. First comes the demolition, then the reconstruction. Start building parallel structures.
- You’ve got to educate yourself about Bitcoin not because it’s trendy, but because it opts you out of monetary manipulation. And the time to do this is now. The sooner the better!
What else?
- You can start growing your own food, even if it’s just basil in a windowsill. (I just started sprouting a couple of avocado seeds and I am really curious if I can grow them into trees:).
- You can focus on building real relationships.
- You can educate your kids—or yourself—outside of institutions that exist with the purpose to program compliance into you.
We don’t wait for the system to collapse. In fact the point is not for us to overthrow the system. All we have to do is stop depending on it.
And while the system sells you a gospel of limitlessness, you fight back by embracing limits. Rest is just as important as activity. Focus on what you can handle and turn off the rest. It is just noise. In a culture obsessed with hacking, upgrading, and optimizing, limits are sacred, because they remind you that you’re human—not a machine. Ok, so you can’t get done everything you want to or everything you ‘should.’ For the sake of sanity and health and to practice contentment and acknowledge your limitations, only do what you can handle. This doesn’t mean to not attempt big things. In fact it is important and healthy to have large goals that can’t be accomplished without long-term effort. The point here is to know what you want to do, what you can do, and work on it at a steady and manageable pace - one small step after another. A long obedience in the same direction.
The next point is important: you can’t do this alone. You need a few people around you who see through the illusion and have the same desire to move away from it. Look for and join communities where people value truth more than appearances. People who live slowly on purpose, who practice thankfulness and contentment. They can be the scaffolding for your new way of life.
Jesus said: “In this world you will have trouble, but I leave you my peace.” We are not talking about a comfortable road here. The system doesn’t release its slaves quietly. People who are content to be a part of the system, and especially the ones whose livelihood depends on the system will not understand you. They may dismiss this whole thing and make fun of you for being silly enough to believe there is a different way. You might lose access to places or groups where you used to belong.
No, this is not for everyone. This lifestyle shift is a form of spiritual rebellion. In many ways it is equivalent to the Israelites leaving their Egyptian slavery and later wanting to go back. Leaving the relative comfort of an oppressive system for something else that promises to be better, but is not fully here yet is scary. It requires faith, courage and perseverance, which are the qualities God is calling all his people to cultivate in an ever increasing measure. We were created to be free. Every act of resistance to the current system, as simple as a moment of contentment, a choice to delay gratification, a refusal to convert everything to a dollar value, is in itself a declaration: You do not own me!
Final Word:
Escaping a corrupt system isn’t a single action, but a lifestyle of spiritual defiance.
And it starts with one question: What’s owning me that I’ve been calling “normal”?
If you are interested in history, look up Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew and the father of public relations. In 1928 Bernays wrote a book called "Propaganda" where he introduced the idea that propaganda could be a democratic tool when used by elites. First utilized in marketing it eventually became a tool to shape public perception and to influence public behavior. For a fascinating and eye-opening study, if you feel open to having your eyes opened, watch this documentary:
Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and lay Protestant theologian, best known for his penetrating critiques of technology, propaganda, and modern society. His work is especially influential among those concerned with the impact of technological systems on human freedom and faith. (summary by Chat GPT)