Ever get behind a slow moving car on a 2 lane road when you’re in a hurry? What about it’s a 2 lane road during 5 o’clock traffic with construction? Worst thing ever right? No way to go around them and you’re forced to be still. How dare they! You’re annoyed. People are honking. It’s inevitable you’re going to be late to wherever you’re going. You’re being … duh duh duhhhh…. Inconvenienced. It’s not a crime what you’re experiencing but it definitely can feel like it should be.
People are in inconvenienced every day and somewhere along the lines entrepreneurs realized a recipe for success and easy money. Take something super basic that people don’t really need yet classify it as a need and make it more convenient for them. Water, for example. According to statista.com, the bottled water industry has a revenue estimate for 2022 of $83.02 BILLION dollars and the market is still growing. It’s freaking WATER. It comes natural to humans out of the ground. A super basic God-given element that our bodies need to function yet marketing geniuses are realizing that because it’s a need, if you package it real pretty and put big fancy words on the bottle in cool, bright colors, people will not only spend money they don’t have to but they will be led to believe they are unhealthy if they don’t. Marketing. Why oh why didn’t I listen to my Dad in college and just major in marketing. You’re welcome Dad. I put it in writing as you always say.
But honestly, we love our lives every single day trying to find ways to be less inconvenienced. Either by products or taking the “back way” home while driving. We buy products to help us “organize”- key BIG marketing word there, that we already have. We buy stuff to hold our stuff to put that stuff on a shelf. Stuff. More stuff! We buy anything and everything to help make our lives “simpler”. Man oxy-morons are fun aren’t they? Simplify your life by buying more stuff. Yes!! Let’s do it!! Adds to Amazon cart…
And speaking of Amazon, gobankingrates.com says Amazon’s net worth as of last December 31, was $438 billion dollars and some change. Some change being below a billion dollars. Just chunk change. They took the idea of convenience and literally ran with it at the speed of Usain Bolt! Paid off big time. It’s crazy to think of life pre Amazon isn’t it? Almost as stone ages to my children as life before cell phones. “Just Amazon that mom”. Even my 9 year old somehow added my Amazon account to his cell phone and gets notifications. “Mom your coffee is arriving tomorrow according to Amazon”. Um…. Thanks?! Who needs Alexa. I’ve got a child with a cell phone and Amazon alerts apparently. Let the judgey parents just run with that one…
The fun part is, if you take away the mental notation that you’re being inconvenienced by something, you make actually be forced to stop and smell the roses. No one wants to be late but what if while you’re running late you get to hear your favorite song on the radio? Or what if because you’re late you missed a real bad car crash that you might have been involved in? Being inconvenienced is a mental battle of deciding what’s more important. Arriving on time or arriving safely? And can you really change any aspect of being inconvenienced? Do you have control over the semi in front of you that got lost on their gps and is now driving super slow on that 2 lane road causing you to be 10 minutes later than you had planned? Nope. No control over that. So why waste your energy on things that are beyond your control? Why become negative in a situation that could ultimately be a huge positive? It’s a choice. Life is about choices right? Or so they say. Whoever they is. Most like our parents. Anyway, it’s a choice to be inconvenienced so maybe next time try to take a step back, a solid deep breath and find the positives in a situation that would otherwise spiral downhill into a negative future.
Stay positive!
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