Last weekend was Smallsteps' birthday get-together with family, but today she is going to have a party with her friends at one of those kids play parks with slides, swings and trampolines. What is interesting and sad, is that with the price of groceries at the moment, it is actually cheaper to have the party today than last week, though all they offer today is some ice cream, popcorn and chips. It is obviously also more convenient, since we don't have to worry about cleaning before people arrive, entertaining, or cleaning up after. The kids have a good time, however, I think that next year we are going to do something different instead.
Convenience.
It is the silent killer.
Our lives these days are dictated by convenience, yet it is increasingly impacting on us negatively. Of course, it isn't all bad and it is part of the mechanism for us evolve as a species, as we improve our methods and tools to become more efficient and effective. Yet, it is also a mechanism that provides market space, so that things like "foods of convenience" can be supplied, regardless of whether they are healthy or not. Fast food might be okay in moderation, but how much of what so many of us eat is fast and, what is moderate?
The challenge with choices of convenience is that we are filling our lives up with more time-consuming activities, even if they don't necessarily improve our experience. For instance, I wonder how many people's lives are that much better because of all of the streaming content they watch. But, being able to turn on a tap and get clean water is amazing in terms of convenience and is something that likely saves lives too.
However, we are geared to favor convenient, because we are built to conserve energy, not spend it. Our bodies are designed to find ways to create shortcuts in our lives, whether it be physical processes or mental heuristics and it is this predilection that primes us to becomes slaves to the convenient. We can buy food, so few people cook. We can buy clothes, so few people know how to make their own. We can buy a house, so few people can build. We can buy entertainment, so we don't learn how to entertain ourselves.
Convenience is a skill killer.
There is term called "competitive cognitive artefacts", where tools compete against the development of our own skills. For instance, if we are continuously using calculators to do simple math, our own brains lose the ability to do so, because they aren't doing the work for themselves. It is mental atrophy. And how I see it, pretty much all acts of convenience are doing the same, competing for space in the skill landscape, replacing bits of us, without us even realizing what we are is disappearing.
Think about this in terms of personal finance, where in the past each person and household would have to take care of their own resources. Yet over the years, this has been slowly replaced by business systems and governments so that most people in the world have decreasing control over what they own, to the point that they own very, very little.
Our money is not ours. Our houses are not ours. Our jobs are not ours. Our lives are not ours.
This has come about through a trillion choices of convenience to choose some kind of efficiency to gain value in one area, at the expense of value in another. And it is an easy decision to make, as making the choice saves time, energy, resources - it is a no-brainer. And we will keep making the same decision over and over until we have no brain left at all.
Slaves to convenience.
We end up in a position where we are not only unable to think and act for ourselves, but also that we aren't allowed to think and act for ourselves. Instead, the decision-making power is proxied out to businesses and governments, who are peddling convenient solutions, because this is how they keep their products relevant and how they build wealth and control.
I sound like a crazy person.
I might be. But, I do think that there is some kind of pushback starting to happen, where some people are realizing the cost of convenience. Just look at us here on Hive - none of this is easier than on other social platforms and in order to be successful, it takes a lot of work. And, it isn't just work to build content and engage, but also to understand the ecosystem, the mechanisms in play and actually take responsibility for personal experience.
Your keys, your life.
At least on Hive. On Hive, owning your keys gives you power, as it is your ability to make decisions for yourself and act as you choose. You can give your power to others through delegation or choose to take it away again, but ultimately, you are responsible and accountable for your behavior and the consequences of your Hive activity.
You are free.
Not free to do anything, because there are always universal rules in place, and the rules of the blockchain are the universal rules of the Hive ecosystem, even though they can be rewritten. But, at any given point in time, you are free to act within the constraints of the system, interact with people as you choose and live your experience as you please. This doesn't mean you get the results you want, but it does give you control and influence.
But it isn't convenient.
Life isn't convenient. Neither is love.
The more we give in to convenience, the more we might be losing. Sure, there are gains, but tell me, what skills have you been developing through your Netflix consumption, and has it improved on other areas of your life - are you eating better? Are your relationships better?
Everything has a cost. A lot of convenience might not be worth the price.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
We live inside our heads more than outside with our hands, many lose the ability to construct/grow their own rather than to buy off the shelf.
Wow Smallsteps has grown into a pretty young lady before our eyes.
You may look at the play park birthday party as not ideal, however the children love ad-hoc outings like this, finding home parties more a formal family occasion.
!LUV to Smallsteps with hugs and Happy Birthday wishes.
@tarazkp, @joanstewart(7/10) sent LUV. | connect | community | HiveWiki | NFT | <>< daily
! help(no space) to get help on Hive. InfoConvenience and instant gratification mindset - it is destroying us - I would like to say slowly, but it is quite rapid.
She is growing fast and I hope that she won't fall into the trap of too much convenience without filling the time saved with what helps her grow.
Too quickly trades are forgotten that many were able to master, agree with you this instant gratification is unhealthy concept too many fall into the trap.
Now at an age to do camping during summer, hiking, learning more about the outdoors, skiing in winter or ice skating with friends, to me it feeds the brain to think. The more falls or difficulty experienced growing up, assists youth to face diversity in the real world. After falling or scrapping their knees a couple of times, we learn to find balance. 😌
I always find it amazing how quick they grow, 6 years ago she was only a tiny beauty and now she is almost a young lady. Please convey our happy birthday wishes to her.
Zac and Marian.
Will do. She is growing fast now. Still about the same height though! :D
Thank you and I have a feeling that she will eventually be taller than both of her parents.
Right, it is not easy. That's why many people have come here thinking to earn money in a short time, but then left seeing it is not that easy.
It is far easier to leave than to build.
I am also facing this problem or issue from last many months, I know I can earn rewards from hive by putting time and effort but it's required some attention that's why mostly I end up watching tiktok and Facebook reels for hours. That's why mostly people said in order to fulfill over goals and dreams we have to get out of over comfort zone but watching or scrolling videos is more convenient or comfortable as compared to write an article or reply to some one on his post, we have to think about that if we want some progress
And this is most of the world now. An opportunity for those with some brains and skills to take advantage.
Dear @tarazkp!
I agree with you!
By the way, what solution do you have?
Socially structurally, we are all forced to pay for convenience!😦
Yes, we pay for convenience. How about making our lives less convenient then?
Dear @tarazkp !
I agree with you!
Then we have to give up a lot of convenience! 🙂
What convenience can you give up?
Not sure how that works. But a lot of people marry for Convenience, have kids for Convenience. A lot of things they do get more depth into a spiral and it works for them. And for others it may not. You either choose Convenience or you choose burden. Either way you pay the price.
There is always a price. For those who keep choosing convenience but not filling their "time saved" with something that improves them, they are going to pay a very heavy toll.
I agree with you. If necessity can be bought with the help from others, who cares to waste time and energy to to that ownself! As you said, it has both the positive and negative impact on our life.
We do many staffs in daily life for convenience but evrything we do is not healthy for our body and mind. It just brings short time comfort but in the distance, it can be harmful or even deadly. Our dependency on machine and technology is eating us gradually but we don't care if our life span reduce to zero one day.
We can do something that saves us a lot of time, but what we do in that time saved is important. Most of us, do not much of value.
I'm guilty of this with sites such as Google, youtube, and other search engines. Finding an answer to a question seems great and sometimes it is, but I've also noticed in myself the lack of initiative to figure something out for myself even something as simple as the name of a movie or how many oz in a cup..
This can be useful when needed information on something I would have no idea about and need accurate info on but more often than not I've been kinda lazy depending on a computer or a phone instead of my own mind.
And we don't know if what we look up is even the correct info or not. It's so easy to post something online now and many people choose to blindly trust the info they find, either out of ignorance or blind trust.
I agree with what you wrote, I think too much comfort affects people badly. For example, it's also nice to order food at home, but people order food from outside so much now that they don't go out. Unfortunately, it only makes them gain more weight and they don't socialize as much. Everything needs to be done in moderation.
That's great. Your daughter have a birthday party with her friends. These little moments are always memorable for us. Hope she enjoyed alot.
I agree with you. Convenience is a skill killer. And that's what people think and do nowadays. It makes people lazy.
Convenient also is not just a skill killer, but also a killer in real situations. Because of convenience, people prefer to ride in a car even just going on a short distance. They tend to forget to walk. Take an elevator instead of stairs. They forgot that walking is the best exercise, and the result, too much cholesterol and fats will be accumulated in their bodies, and will die at an early age. Convenience took us to a bad lifestyle.
Some powerful insights. I might as well say convenience is "the thief of time". Thank you for sharing
It is very good to be convenient but too much convenience is a skill killer as you have said. I feel it is just the same way saying that you cannot make money at your comfort zone so you have to go outside your comfort zone to be able to get whatever you want even though it is not money.
I love how you always have different plans for smallsteps. It is so cool
Great subject to write about. Just recently I wrote the phrase:
"When a person uses most of his time distracting himself rather than developing himself it means he is running from something" And I have found this to be true in my life experience. When I was in the deepest part of my depresion I expendend so much time playing and disolving myself in movies and series I barely remember anything from that time. Now I realize I was suffering so bad and didn't know what to do about it that all I knew I can do is numb the pain. And that's quite a thing in today's culture!
Paying the price of having a society without emotional or philosophical education. A society that has stopped wondering but demanding, as survival as become harder and harder as we humans reproduce with no apice of consciousness about the lives we are bringing in. It's a quite long chain of cause and effect worth pondering about.
As far as convenience goes, there are quite a few apps I keep off my mobile because I would become too soft with the fallback options.
NO Rideshare Apps - I'm lucky to be in a major metropolis like New York City without the need for a car of my own because I can walk, ride my bike, or take public transit practically anywhere I want to go.
NO Food Delivery Apps - I hate these things. Nothing worse than eating cold delivery food. If I'm going to pay a premium to have someone else make my food, I want to enjoy it hot and fresh out of the oven. I'm either eating it at the restaurant or I'm picking it up myself and taking it home quickly so I can eat it right away.
NO TV streaming services - The only thing I'm consistently watching on TV these days is Soccer (premier league & champions league predominantly). I pay for Paramount (CBS) and Peacock (NBC) to be able to watch these competitions, but I rarely watch anything else. I do have a soft spot for stand-up comedy, which similar to your writing Taraz, is thought provoking and engaging in a way that most mindless TV programming is not.
Technology just amplifies time preference.
What used to be a very expensive, inconvenient Ivy League education can now be had at home via the internet; which also offers better entertainment than the best court jesters any King ever saw.
Planning for the future has never been more efficient; and not-planning for the future has never been more fun.
And this is the crux, isn't it?