An insightful joke

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

The restrictions on pandemic were relaxed on 19th Aug. It is great to be able to see people again.

So a small group of us met for some work related discussions.

Another group was overseas, so we had to be on Teams also.

At one point, our phones were running out of batteries and we were taking turns to charge our phones using the one power bank available to us.

As the indicator light on the power bank turned red, the owner of the power bank said: 

“I wish the battery tech could evolve soon to allow one full-day charge for my two phones in this single power bank”.

No one paid much attention to the comment or gave a second thought at that time.

But I felt something was not entirely right.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Only on my way back, it suddenly came to me:

If the battery tech could evolve enough to allow one full-day charge for two phones in one single power bank, we probably do not need power banks any more.

Because with battery tech that powerful, our phone battery alone would be able to satisfy our daily needs.

Photo by Emma Gossett on Unsplash

Intuitively, improvement in battery tech to allow more power in the same form-factor of the power bank would make the power bank more desirable.

But that same battery tech will also increase the life-time of our phone batteries, to a point where we will have no need for power banks.

Power banks are needed because our phone batteries cannot last long enough anyway.

So three lessons for me:

1. What seems beneficial to something could wipe the same thing out entirely.
2. Never forget the root of the problem or solution. 
3. Take another perspective before reaching the conclusion.

Till next time!