The “Five [Insert Cool Technology] I Can’t Live Without” posts have been a popular series on ProfHacker. Today I want to turn that topic on its head and think about the things we
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The “Five [Insert Cool Technology] I Can’t Live Without” posts have been a popular series on ProfHacker. Today I want to turn that topic on its head and think about the things we can live without.
I don’t mean annoying things we could do without, like complaints about grades or being stuck in traffic. I mean things that we thought we couldn’t live without but which it turns out we can. I mean things that held such great promise for happiness, completion, or freedom but which turn out to be useless, disappointing, or even enslaving.
Remember that one thing you thought was going to change your life forever for the good if you got it, but two weeks later your life is pretty much the same? Or maybe your life is now even worse? That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. Things that you thought you needed, sometimes desperately so, but which you find you don’t need at all, and maybe are even happier without.
Let’s hear it the comments: what seemingly once essential thing do you not need and why? How did you discover you could live without it? And how quickly did this realization hit you?
[Jail Kitty photo courtesy of Flickr user phphoto2010 / Creative Commons Licensed]
