Convenience - a little rant

What's the famous quote, about something being a good servant but a poor master?

Maybe it applies to everything. It certainly does to the idea of "convenience"

I have watched people, myself included, become so focused on our our entitlement to having things suit us and be easy, that we give second place to our compassion, our sense of perspective, our humility and our dignity.

I would never suggest that anything be made more difficult than necessary, but really people, how easy and 'catered-to' do we need to be? Especially if we want to think of ourselves as independent, healthy, intelligent adults? 

A couple of days ago I heard an obviously well-educated, prosperous man in his 50s berate a ferry ticket clerk for 10 minutes, because a boarding gate change meant he lost his place in the queue and he would have to wait what turned out to be 2 minutes longer.

Today's example was worse - on hearing of the plane crash in San Francisco (2 dead, 60+ injured, many rescue workers' lives endangered) all that one of my companions could think of was that her neighbor, flying out of SFO, might be delayed and have to wait around in the terminal.

What's this all about?

 Today's convenience phenomenon is largely created by the retail industry, especially fast food.  It is a marketing mindshift designed to make people more likely to purchase products, particularly the kinds of foods we are all coming to realise are not in our own best interests. You can't read the whole article, but take a look at this precis and think. Do a Google image search for the word "convenience" like I did, and see what images are associated.

Think about whether "convenience" has a higher value to you than compassion, perspective, independence, humility, dignity.

Here endeth etc. etc.