We ruminated about what was new in our lives and traded ideological cliff notes. At one point, we broached the subject of the beauty of simplicity in life.

Readers of my free, near daily blog and listeners of my podcast know that for years, I've been partially ascribing the decay of Western civilization, led by the political left, to our belief that overanalyzing and overthinking the excruciating minutiae of "problems"—whether they be day-to-day issues, political, social or otherwise— can be effective.

Instead, I've argued, our obsession of identifying "intellectual solutions" has thrown the engine of evolution into reverse. Like the Titanic, we don't just come to a dead stop and start regressing as a society in a way that's so obvious that it's easy to recognize. Rather, progress slowly erodes, then civilization reaches an evolutionary standstill, and only then do we start to slowly regress—tearing down the principles, values, and educational foundations of society little by little.

In 2024, we are a nation of people whose evolutionary biology stands at stark odds with the world of abundance that surrounds us. What would Cro-Magnon man think of problems like choosing between a Diet Coke and Coke Zero at a car dealership vending machine while trying to determine whether to buy a Chevy Suburban or a Cadillac Escalade? Or which filter to use when taking your 21st selfie of your dog for the day — and then whether you should post it on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram or all three?

These are slightly different than the nuanced issues we had to worry about thousands of years ago and, therefore, evolved equipped to deal with.

It is this widening gap between our age-old hardwiring and modern-day societal expectations, led by sociological and cultural cornerstones like Jerry Springer, Brazilian butt-lifts and The Golden Bachelor, that has caused us to lose sight of what living in a calm state or having a satisfied mind means.

For Cro-Magnon man, calm was food that night, a warm fire and not dying. End of list.

Today, calm is something we desperately tell ourselves we feel when we reach a certain number of social media followers, despite never snapping out of the anxious and panicked state we are in. Calm comes in 1.7 second increments, when a dopamine hit from a bite of a Cheesy Gordita Crunch™ and a sip of a Mountain Dew Baja Blast™ futilely attempts to register in any way on our biologically hijacked rewards system, only to have the same success of that of an infant who has yet to take their first steps trying to scale Everest.

And our modern day inability to find calm and satisfaction is what drives people (myself included) to moments of feeling like they aren't good enough, aren't doing enough, aren't getting what they are entitled to and aren't being recognized or making a difference.