The Future is Less
Most of the health care discussions I participate in or articles I read about how to save health care boils down to one overarching sentiment: MORE.
More resources, more money, more doctors, more nurses, more tech, more spaces, more treatments, more tactics, more 50-point plans (so much better than 25-point plans), more everything.
It's enough of more.
There is no greater detrimental legacy in the history of homo sapiens than the default instinct of “more is better”.
More is why the planet is slowly inching its way towards inhabitability.
More is why wars are waged and waged and never really won or done.
More is why people exploit people.
More is why too many suffer, and only the very few flourish.
More is why demands never stop growing and supply strains to keep pace.
More is why big business is win at all cost.
More is why most people move through life deeply dissatisfied no matter how much more they have.
More is why we put patients ahead of people.
And more is why no matter what we invent or invest in health care there never seems to be enough of it to de dispensed, prescribed, or provided.
The Buddha said that our suffering arises through desire. Desire takes many forms, but one of its most obvious is the insatiable appetite for more.
Here’s the problem with a philosophy of more in health care and why we need to quell that desire toute suite. An analogy will help explain in less language.
When it comes to the storage space you add to your home – a shelf, a closet, a bin – inevitably it will be littered with stuff. What we create we feel compelled to uncreate. Present people with empty spaces and they will rush to fill it – with distraction, with addiction, with things, with longing, with resentment, with hurt, with noise, with endless thinking and ruminating – anything but the void, we demand. This is as true physically as it is psychically.
This life we have been gifted is no exception to the rule of the void. We are among the most complex, intricate, and well-honed living beings to evolve through this planet. And yet, through our relentlessly desirous nature, we abuse, neglect, overlook and outright self flatulate ourselves into states of brokenness. We demand that health care pick up the pieces. And so, it indulges us. We peek over the brilliance of our own selves and cry out for more when things inevitably go sideways through our more-ish behaviour, much of it instigated by constant craving with a healthy dose of feelings of unfulfillment.
There is only one healthy future for health care and that is flipping the script on more. We need an IV that drains health care of the false notion that there will ever be enough of more. There won’t be. And worse, a philosophy of more in health care enculturates people to think less of themselves – “you break, we fix” isn’t just a place to get your cracked smartphone screen replaced. It’s become the sad and silent agreement that has been architected between health care and its adoring and loyal users.
If we continue to treat people like patients, they will happily indulge us - dress more hospital beds, and they will just as quickly be unmade by the bodies that fill them. There is no scenario where more will ever be enough if the first premise of health care is to be in service to a land that is littered with overindulging, broken toys. The health care of more is a prescription with endless numbers of refills. Good for the business of health care, bad for health.
The single greatest investment we can make in the future of health care is less, because less will nurture more of the experiences that support deep satisfaction and well-being.
Less reaction, more preparation.
Less treating, more preventing.
Less rushing, more attending.
Less all you can eat, more eat what is caringly needed.
Less time with the self neglecting, more time with the most vulnerable.
Less sitting, more moving.
Less institutional care, more communing with each other and our natural surroundings.
Less scrolling, more rest.
Less spending, more investing.
Less controlling, more trusting.
Less funneling, more collaborating.
Less prescribing, more understanding.
Less worry, more equanimity.
Less will be the single greatest achievement for the future of health care. The only way we can make that happen if we all collectively agree to stop yelling at the void, quiet the endless echo of more, and listen attentively to what the Truth of health care is inviting us to plainly see – when it comes to the profound intelligence of the gift that is you incarnate, less is always more.