Recently, I have had to buy light bulbs. I haven’t had to buy lightbulbs for quite some time. In fact, it was about the time that fluorescent bulbs were replacing ordinary bulbs, and bulbs that were as bright as 60 Watt bulbs but only used 30 Watts of power or less were being hailed as the next great energy saver. Gone were the days of 60 Watt bulbs being 60 Watt bulbs. And things have moved on further since then with the introduction of LED bulbs, meaning even greater energy savings. Energy savings are so great, that bulbs are now labelled with an efficiency rating – something which used to be saved only for large white goods like fridges and washing machines.
So I scrolled through pages of the internet looking for a bulb as a suitable replacement for the one which had “gone” in my kitchen. There are many factors to be considered, such as size and temperature, which actually describes the bulbs colour not it’s temperature (and I thought paint colour conventions were complicated). Having narrowed down my search to the right fitting and size and shape, I began to look for the most efficient as this seemed to be one of the more important factors. As I searched, I began to question that assumption. The bulb that I thought that I wanted was rated F (on a scale of A-G where A is the most efficient). There was an alternative available which was almost identical but rated B – that must be the one I want, I thought. But as I carefully compared the specifications, I noticed that this new more efficient bulb actually used slightly more power. How could this be? I wondered, until I realised that this new bulb was twice as bright – and using only slightly more power, made it more efficient – technically.
But was it really more efficient in my case? Because I didn’t need a bulb that was twice as bright, I could see perfectly well with the original bulb, so this new bulb wasn’t really offering to do the job twice as well for a little more power, but to do the same job for a little more power. That makes it less efficient in my book! What seemed to be much better was actually a little worse, all because of one false assumption – that I would want as much light as possible. As I though about this for a moment, I wondered how many times I had been unknowingly misled about what was best based on the assumption that I must always want more. In someways our culture is based around dissatisfaction and always wanting more, sometimes just for the sake of having more. Sometimes it offers no benefit to me, yet I go along with it, assuming it’s what I want, when in reality it leads only to dissatisfaction. It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you have. I guess sometimes less really is more.
Originally written for the September 2024 ABC Newsletter
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