A popular notion of the wealthy is that practically everything they do or have is easier or better: They all drives Porsches, Mercedez-Benz, live in million-dollar homes, in the best neighborhoods, with the best private schools, the best healthcare, the longest lives, the happiest, etc. To a large degree, many of those things are true in that they are better or nicer or whathaveyou. What I like to think about in terms of how people try to compare their lives is actually not so much what is better or worse (or different) but what is almost exactly the same.

Practically regardless of income, people in western cultures shower and cleanse their bodies everyday. Guess what? That takes about 15-30 minutes. No matter how rich you and wealthy you are, it takes the same 15-30 minutes. Everyone has to eat and although the rich might be eating quail eggs and crab legs, they still have to eat and it takes about the same amount of effort and time as someone hitting the local soup kitchen. Relationships between married couples are almost just as difficult or stressful, happy and sad, regardless of income. People still go to school for the first 18-22 years of life, regardless of income level, even if the more wealthy have a tendency to get "better" schools than the less wealthy. The rich still have to piss and shit like the rest of us and still have to wipe their ass, even if you consider some of them might have the cool Japanese style toilets with the built-in heated seat and the bidet.

Here's a list of things that, if they were 10 times faster or easier, could have a profound effect on our lives:

* Learning 18-22 years of formal education in 3
* Automatic folding of your clothes, in addition to cleaning them (low cost, not outsourced laundry)
* Toasting your bread, perfectly, in 5 seconds
* Cleaning your teeth in 5 seconds and not even requiring you to use the bathroom sink
* Only needing to go to the bathroom half as many times as you do currently in a day
* A body cleaning system that cleans your entire body in 30 seconds, as a replacement for a shower, with similar results
* A convection oven that heats up (or cools down) to the target temperature almost instantly

There's certainly more than what I've listed here but you get the idea. If you wanted to come up with some thing really innovative, consider something that might fall in one of these areas. For example, could we invent a product or service that is different than a traditional shower that takes, say, 30 seconds and can clean the whole body, not to mention save plenty of water (and electricity or natural gas)? Could we invent something that expands our brain faster than it does naturally to speed up education (whoa)? Is there something we could invent that might allow us to not have to go to the bathroom as often? Is there some way to do more systematic and structural relationship mapping to put people that truly are the most compatible and interested in each other together as a couple, to reduce stress to its optimal level, to reduce argumentation or distraction?

Anyways, these kinds of things always fascinate me. Major improvements in our every day activities are some of the things that could have the most profound effects on our lives. Just imagine if you could make cleaning your teeth no more than a painless, simple 5 second procedure instead of a 1-3 minute procedure, twice a day. What if it didn't even require you to go to the bathroom sink to do it and still get the same hygienic benefit? It would be amazing.