Where did we go so wrong?

I’m trying to think where in the history of modern society and capitalism we got so wrong? We certainly live in the most prosperous era, there are many technological advances and life expectancy and health are better than any other era, and yet, living in a “modern” society is so hard. We spend our lives trying to save enough money to retire. We get debt to get an education that allow us to earn more money and then we spend a lot of time paying that debt.

It looks like simpler, mor connected way of living is possible and brings many benefits, better quality of life, longer life expectancy, less stress; but it feels to me as unattainable as the other end, the opulent ultra rich life. The simpler life, where ideally we self sustain and live in a small village, while nice, it seems to put us in the border of bankruptcy.
I was thinking this as I was reading about uncontacted human civilizations that don’t participate in this modern life. They don’t need money or any of the technological advances, in many cases it seems to bring the a better lifestyle. In our modern society, being good means a bigger house, more cars, buy more things, have more stuff, and then just pile them up, throw them away and buy more stuff. No wonder why in the United States the storage business is so successful and even exists, I wonder if is as big in other countries this business of have extra space to store things we own.

It is hard to grasp what’s the correct solution. I wish we were in a point where the machines do all for us so we can focus on having that small village community life, where we still can be farmers but just because we want to, because we like the smell of the dew in the morning. Or where we can go and paint in the plaza after talking with our friends and go to the market to pick up fresh vegetables.

We would probably never get there. It seems this always struggling, always making money for someone else is a model that is very well established and will go for much longer. I just hope we don’t destroy the resources we have to live in an attempt to have more stuff.

Anyway, I was just thinking about that.