Only stressed people want to relax. Otherwise, we want to do more. The changing-baseline effect is an artifact of a particular market competition. Housing pr

Only stressed people want to relax. Otherwise, we want to do more. The changing-baseline effect is an artifact of a particular market competition. Housing prices went up as two-earner households increased faster than the housing supply. (i.e., women's entry into the workplace wasn't primarily a technological change) By contrast, secretary, illustrator and translator are hardly careers any more. What technology (communications, computers, transportation) did was to make it possible for few people to effectively control many people and a lot of resources, without much of a tax for bureaucracy (coordination costs). Sometimes that's been good, sometimes not. Today the driving feature of being busy stems from lacking pace control at work. Professionals used to be distinguished by owning their own standards and controlling the pace of work. Now even doctors and lawyers work in hierarchies with production processes. The only freedom today lies in being off the critical path (but still necessary), or using technology to go directly to consumers. Or just having resources.