There is more and more relativity in modern life; it's a trend that is accelerating with Moore's Law (computing capacity doubles every year), environmental changes, political changes, globalization, brexitzations, etc. Because of the internet, every thing is now relative to something else easy to google (the richest, the poorest, the most/less this and the most/less that). The morale of the story is that more and more the important things boil down to our motivations, as you say.