Questioning What's Better

By the time we are grown-ups (or even adolescents), we hustle relentlessly to “be better”—smarter, healthier, cooler, thinner, richer, funnier, prettier, calmer, and woker. The “-er” at the end of these words is comparison and competition.

The paradigm we casually call business is just one approach to human exchange. It was built in an industrial era, and for it. Its fundamental assumptions—shareholder value creation, mass production, hierarchical management, disposable goods made for consumers—are today less profitable, useful, worthy, and beneficial than ever. Betterness, in contra

I call this positive paradigm betterness; in contrast with business, it’s not about being busier and busier (to what end?) but about becoming better. I believe it’s the next step in the evolution of prosperity and that its foundational principle is living lives that matter in human terms.