Infinite are the problems of our world

Human over-population, deforestation, scarcity of petroleum, political instability, non-uniform distribution of wealth, traffic accidents, pesticides & chemical laden agricultural produce, dearth of fresh water reserves, climate change, spread of epidemics, cancer & lifestyle diseases, social unrest, terrorism, rising crime, shortage of urban real estate... you can keep counting, but there is no end to problems in this world. So what is the biggest problem humanity is facing at present?

Is Tech development a solution or cause of the problems?

In my humble opinion, our society's failure to spend adequate time with oneself is the biggest cause of all the problems we face today. It may sound strange to you. But today, we have designed our lives in such a manner that we all are over-occupied with gadgets and machines and can hardly find any time for interacting with humans. Most of our interaction with people happen through internet or over phone. Gadgets have decreased the geographical distance among people to almost zero. So we tend to interact with several people at any given time. This in turn has reduced our attention span and made us impatient.

Today, a very few people devote a small portion of their time to spend with themselves. Most of the time either they are occupied with some work in an effort to fulfil their short-term or long-term career goals of earning some riches or fame or social status or security of the family; or they would spend their spare time interacting with present day technological marvels. We can't find sufficient time to spend a good chunk of our time with another human being.

Relationships among humans are getting shallower

I've found that acquaintances in the society or even intimate friends turn up to meet you once in a while to sustain the relationship. These meeting often last for half an hour to an hour's time at the most and the formality is supposed to be completed. In this short time, people just communicate over some tea & snacks and exchange updates about each other's lives and may share some updates of lives of a common acquaintance and may be, some gossip over current affairs when time becomes too difficult to pass for some. But no one can stand this meeting any longer. So none of us ever delve into the deeper aspects of communication on any subject. Almost all our conversation is either formal or merely an exchange of information or serves to fulfil our selfish material interests, of course with some fun-time involved.

Disconnected society

This has led to formal and shallow relationships. The bonding among humans is getting weaker and weaker with time. So none of us has time for any deeper sharing of our findings and understandings of life in general. Thus our collective understanding is getting shallower. I feel this is the biggest cause of all the present day problems being faced by humanity. Even if you have found some solution to a serious problem, I've no time to listen to you. So you won't get an opportunity to share your understanding and refine it further. Without collective understanding of social problems, we would never reach to any solution.

Solution

As a person, we can only solve our personal problems. We don't have any right or authority to solve others' problems. So in this disconnected society, it is in our best interest to nurture a deep relationship with one's own-self. If we can be at peace with our own-self, we'll always be happy, no matter what the other person is feeling. So the key to happiness & peace is to spend time with our own-self and solve all our personal issues by thinking, analysing and conversing with ourselves. We need to seek the knowledge and wisdom on our own. No one else will intentionally do any value-addition to it. We should learn from our own experiences.

• So how many of you really spend some time with yourself regularly?
• How much time do you give to yourself daily, when you are not occupied in any other work?