I was sitting on a terrace, coffee getting cold in front of me, watching people pass by.
A man at the next table kept refreshing his inbox. Across the street, someone walked while talking into their phone, pausing as if the air itself was listening. At another table, a couple sat together, both scrolling, barely speaking.
Nothing dramatic. Just a normal day. Still, something felt familiar.
In conversations about life or work, people rarely asked “Does this feel right?”
They asked “Is there evidence?”
Research, numbers, stories of others who had tried and succeeded. Proof felt safer than truth.
Where shared stories used to hold us
Not so long ago, people leaned on something different. Shared meaning. Traditions. Tribes. Rituals that gave shape to life’s bigger questions.
I reflected on this in an earlier piece about how shared anchors have faded – The Decline of Religion: A New Search for Meaning – and how that leaves a quiet absence or even emptiness inside us.
In another piece, The Rise of Societal Refugees, I named what often follows: not aimlessness, but the feeling of being a stranger inside your own life – and moving to other places as a result.
People work, perform, connect. Yet something feels slightly off, like living someone else’s rhythm.
When tension turns inward
The first signs are small. A tiredness that lingers. A busyness that feels strangely empty. The sense of keeping up while losing touch with yourself.
When that happens, the advice is usually practical.
Work on yourself.
Improve your mindset.
Find a better routine.
So people try. And while trying, they look for reassurance. Proof that this discomfort is normal. Proof that the effort will pay off – eventually.
Proof helps them carry on. It “explains” unease. It gives language to a feeling. But some questions don’t show up in data. They arise in quiet moments. On terraces. On evening walks home. Late at night.
Questions about pace. Questions about meaning. Questions about whether this way of living still fits. Those questions don’t ask for proof. They ask for attention.
Maybe the shift isn’t about finding better answers. Maybe it’s about listening more closely.
And slowly learning the difference between what works on paper
and what works in a human life.
And maybe that’s where quality of life quietly begins – not in what we can prove, but in what we’re finally willing to notice.
Business Hippie Club 