We prioritize convenience over everything, and comfort is pursued above all else.
Even when we know the convenient option is the lazy one, and the comfortable is boring.
Privacy – Readily accepting terms and conditions that give permission to companies to spy on our activities. This is the easiest one for us to hand over, passively with an illusioned ignorance, so they can use or sell the data, to get our money and personal information in circuitous ways.
Safety – Reckless driving to arrive more quickly. The destination isn’t going anywhere. Rushing to assume busyness, to pretend success. If only we had somewhere to go…
Health – A microwave dinner superceding cooking for yourself. The salt and fat in the cardboard box are easier to manage than putting effort into finding a recipe, gathering the ingredients, cooking them in an orderly fashion, then having to clean up at the end. The cigarette is safe, because quitting is hard.
Morality – Joining one or more of the Big Five banks. Their ATMs on every corner, their operating hours extended, their credit cards available to us all. The ethical institution is a credit union, a member-owned financial cooperative, but deliberate steps must be taken to move away from the ease of banking the corporations provide, and so they’re not.
Experience – Forgoing connections to avoid the perception of awkward. Our phones have immediate, correct answers, so we forget there’s another option. The stranger on the street might be a little off, or fly off on a tangent that doesn’t lead to your initially desired outcome, but that’s where the stories are. They’re not on your phone. They’re really not. They’re not on mine either. Headphones in, world out.
Facing a challenge – overcoming it irrelevant – will solidify a memory. Take the long path. Take the alley. Getting lost is how you find your way.
Everything working out isn’t funny. It’s not even anything.