Why do we make life more complicated than it needs to be?

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I think humans are wired to join ... the dots.

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We notice something.

We try to understand it.

We wonder what it means, what caused it, what might happen next and what we should do about it.

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There is a reason for that.

Research from Stanford neuroscientist Vinod Menon, published in Neuron in 2023, shows that a network in the brain known as the default mode network is deeply involved in memory, self-reflection, social thinking and mind-wandering. It helps pull information together into a coherent internal narrative.

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In simple terms, our brains are constantly trying to make sense of what we have experienced, who we are, what other people might be thinking and what all of it means.

Perhaps our tendency to join the dots is not surprising.

The problem is that modern life gives us an almost endless number of dots.

There is always another thing to consider. Another decision to make. Another message to answer. Another way we could be doing something better.

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And then we reach for our phones.

Someone has been promoted, and they are five years younger than you.

An accquaintance launched a business, just two years after joining a multinational.

Your colleague completed HYROX, three times, in three different cities.

Your best mate is on holiday, flying business class, with their family of four.

And then there's the one who has found balance, between business travel, family life, fitness and everything else.

Social media has become a strangely efficient way of placing hundreds of other people’s lives beside our own, creating an unconscious habit of comparison with people we often do not even know.

The thing is, we absolutely know that we are looking at edited versions of reality. But knowing that does not necessarily stop us from comparing.

More recent research continues to point to the role of comparison. A 2024 meta-analysis found that social comparison on social media was associated with lower wellbeing, while research highlighted by Nature Reviews Psychology found that seeing others as better off can negatively influence self-worth and subjective wellbeing.

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That does not mean social media affects everyone in the same way.

But it does suggest that comparison matters more than we sometimes admit.

And I think that is where things get complicated.

You are not simply living your life anymore.

You are living it, assessing it, comparing it, optimising it and wondering whether you are doing enough with it.

Sometimes, something in you knows you need to stop.

Not quit, not disappear to a retreat, not transform your entire life.

Just pause.

But even that can feel strangely difficult.

Because somewhere along the way, being busy became something we started to default to.

Harvard Business Review has written about this directly, including research showing how busyness can become a status signal and how organisations can confuse visible activity with actual achievement.

Maybe that is why rest can feel uncomfortable.

Doing nothing can feel unproductive.

A free hour becomes something to fill.

A quiet moment becomes an opportunity to catch up.

And we become so good at moving that we stop noticing why we are moving in the first place.

That keeps me intrigued.

Not how to escape modern life. In fact, I quite like modern life.

But I am interested in understanding the things we have made unnecessarily difficult. The assumptions we rarely question. The behaviours we repeat because everyone else seems to be doing the same.

Why do we equate busy with important?

Why can slowing down make us uncomfortable?

Why do we keep searching for another answer when perhaps we already know enough?

Why do perfectly intelligent humans make very simple things extraordinarily complicated?

UN/complicate is my place to explore those questions.

Through human behaviour, work, leadership, wellbeing, breath, experience and the seemingly ordinary things I notice along the way.

I am definitely not here because I have worked everything out.

I don't think life is supposed to be always perfect, or that we are supposed to be happy all of the time. But I am here because I believe we are all capable of living this life well, and living it happily. We may just make it harder than it needs to be.

We don't always need more answers. Sometimes, we just need to remove what is getting in the way.

And perhaps, a little more room to simply live.

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We make sense of conversations, patterns, timing, someone’s facial expression, situations we somehow find ourselves in, everything and anything.

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