Why the Convenient Life is Not the Answer

You could be missing out on the magic…

At one point in my life, when I looked around at my friends, most of them worked demanding lives which leave them almost no time for anything else. At one point, some of them had all their necessities and food delivered right to their door so they could maximize their time and dedicate all their energy to work.

This really stuck with me because it left me wondering how much convenience is truly necessary and how much convenience do I really need in my life.

It goes without saying that convenience is great for people who need that extra help when they feel overwhelmed or if they’re disabled. Of course, I’m grateful for the convenience of running water, Google, technology that enables me to call long distance anytime I want to. But the convenience that I’m referring to is the luxury of our modern-day world where that value seems to lean towards “easy is better”.

For me, that would mean cutting chores from my day, expediting my grocery shopping, outsourcing my writing research — just to name a few. I can’t help but wonder what the purpose of freeing up all this time is. And then what? Don’t I have to work more to afford that convenience?

I don’t think that anyone has to make life more difficult or stop being progressive to live a more fulfilling life. I can’t help but think that the convenience is costing us a lot more than meets the eye.

As a small example, like many others, I get all of my best writing ideas and epiphanies when I’m in the process of doing something. When I’m putting away my dishes in the morning. When I’m waiting for customer service to pick up on the other line, or just waiting in line at the grocery store. I recently heard of these referred to as ‘shower thoughts’ because often those ideas come to us during these quiet and unassuming moments when our minds are free to just wander and reflect.

Folding laundry isn’t exactly the highlight of my day or what I talk about when someone asks “how was your day?”. But they are the moments that provide me with a little pause in my day, which gives me access to my inner self. Without these moments, I would be eliminating all the room in my life for creativity, the time to ruminate and just dream.

Maybe we are hardwired to want immediate results and accomplish things with very little effort. Who knows? But I realize more and more that convenience comes to us at the cost of something else. Or someone else.

To me, the biggest cost seems to be the value of growth, perseverance, problem solving, and purposeful decision making that naturally happens during the journey of getting there.

When I reflect on my own life, anything that was worth having — like my relationships, self -awareness, even the projects I’ve taken on require a lot of effort, work, and sometimes even multiple tries. On the other hand, when I acquired something too quickly, I noticed that I saw it as “disposable”.

Perhaps the opposite of convenience is not inconvenience but being more conscious, being fully present in our lives. Even through the tedious, dragged out, repetitive and seemingly uninteresting moments, we can try to take shortcuts and find life hacks to expedite the process.

But I think we would be missing a huge point. It’s like watching the trailer of a movie and thinking that we saw it all. We would be missing the art, the character development, and the subtle hints left in the scenes by the director. I think the only way we can access all of that is to slower our pace and live more conscientiously.

Life is not a race, it’s an art

I’m not judging anyone. I’m not always going to make my pasta sauce from scratch and I will always be amazed anytime a package gets delivered right to my door. But I don’t want convenience to be at the center of my decisions. I’m happy to put in the effort for the people I love, to wash my own dishes, to walk to the store if I can.

Because I wouldn’t want to miss out on the magic that could happen along the way.