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I’m hoping that within the next 20 years I won’t ever have to leave the comfort of my home in order to do anything. And why should I in today’s fast paced, convenient world? I can shop online, and then pay the bills the same way. My purchases can be delivered right to my door and if I’m lazy enough, I can probably figure out a way to sign for packages without even getting up. I can order pizza, find out what’s going on in the world without actually going outside into it. Many businesses allow for much more opportunity to work from home and if I want more schooling, I can do it all through correspondance.

This morning while on my way to school (I know, I’m still driving places. I’m living in the dark ages) I saw a Rogers van advertising ‘Movies On Demand’. The slogan was that I should never have to stop and pick up a movie on my way home from work again. What a FANTASTIC breakthrough we’ve made!! Imagine, having to inconvenience ourselves so much that on our way home we have stop at Blockbuster in order to pick up the latest DVD to watch that evening. Quite frankly, I’m tired of that 30 second out of MY way drive. I may run into someone I know and be forced to talk to them. That’s just silly. The funny thing is, about 40 years ago the idea of renting a movie was just crazy talk. How far we’ve come…

Walmart has also just announced that they will be launching a new store in Stouffville, Ontario. One that is bigger and better than the ones nearest to it. Never mind the fact that Stouffville is not exactly a booming metropolis but there is already a Walmart just East of it in Uxbridge and another one just south of it in Markham. From almost any point in Stouffville you could drive to one in about 15 minutes, but why not make it five? I think that that should be Walmart’s new campaign. To put a Walmart every 5 minutes. Although I suppose idealy we should eliminate store shopping entirely and create a sort of online walmart experience.

I had a similar conversation concerning North America’s convenience oriented lifestyle with my Sr. Pastor about a month ago. It involved comparing the lifestyles of those living in N. America with those living in Europe. One of the reasons for the Obesity over here as opposed to Europe, he said, is not so much the choice of food, but the price. The prices of food in Europe are ridiculous when held against the cheap fast food society in which we have been raised. In many cases it’s both cheaper and easier to live off McDonalds meals rather then go to a grocery store and cook your own food.

We’ve become accostomed to a lifestyle in which everything we need is at our fingertips. Cellphones, laptops, palm pilates, and mp3 players keep us from ever having to move further than our own personal space in order to entertain, enlighten, or communicate. With every new advancement a product can eliminate the competition simply by making the consumer’s life easier. Remember when watches, personal clocks, were an amazement? Now those are beginning to become obsolete. And why shouldn’t they when one can just look at a cellphone for the time? Our devices continue to get smaller and fulfill more functions making its predecessors useless. Discmans, carphones, gameboys; they all become too large and too inconvenient. Even new devices are changing so quickly it’s impossible to keep up. Take the iPod for example. Apple cornered the market for mp3 players with this device. It was small, convenient, and cooL. But then the mini became too big so they released the iPod Nano in order to compete with smaller sized players on the market. Now business week online is saying that music phones are going to be the next big thing, some 112 million were supposed to ship in 2005. This coule drastically affect Apple’s dominance on the market, that is until they create their own iPhone.

The market will continue to eliminate some devices while combining others and the more convenience you feel you need will depend on how long you attempt to keep up. But there’s no way to win. We’re living in the age of advancements. It took 15000 years or so to discover electricity and then a couple hundred more years for the first computer to be created. It wasn’t really until the 20th Century that the pace started to pick up, but once it did there was no stopping it. When are we going to actually say “this is enough”? Will my dream actually come true? The desire to live our lives completely from home seems to be closing in. And what’s stopping it? We continue to embrace these advancements and pour our finances and support into the market. Already we would prefer to watch reality on TV rather than experience it for ourselves. In accepting this way of life we ourselves have simply become another product the market has produced. Products of this consumer lifestyle slowly stamping out effort and reality for the sake of laziness.

But what do we do now? Should we fight this seemingly impossible battle or just give in and accept what we have become. I propose that we fight. Don’t just give in. Go down with both guns blazing. I know I will, as long as I can do it from the comfort of my home…