anything goes with emma chamberlain - the convenience paradox

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

[video on spotify] the moral dilemma that i'm faced with most often is whether or not to choose convenience. i started to notice that the hyper-convenient choices that used to be my default were actually making me feel depressed, isolated, and unhealthy. so i decided to reintroduce inconvenience into my life, and today i'm going to share some examples with you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I think the moral dilemma that I'm faced with most often is whether or not to choose convenience. I'm not just faced with this moral dilemma on a weekly basis or even a daily basis. No, I'm faced with this moral dilemma on an hourly basis. Almost every single decision I make throughout my day somehow relates to this moral dilemma. And I find that fascinating because if I had been born 200 years ago, I'd never face this moral dilemma. Whether or not to choose convenience wasn't a moral dilemma back then. Because life was incredibly inconvenient.

And anytime convenience was an option, it was common sense to choose it. Whereas now, life is unbelievably convenient. I mean, listen, it's still in some ways inconvenient, but compared to how it used to be, life is unbelievably convenient, okay? We can order anything to our door whenever we want. Unless you live in like a random tiny house on a deserted island, you can probably order something

and it'll probably show up in less than a week. Okay, there's an appliance for everything, for everything. You need help with something, there's probably an appliance for that. And on a daily basis, I am faced with the choice to take the convenient route or perhaps the less convenient route. But this was not always a dilemma that I faced.

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I ordered food delivery. I ordered everything online. I socialized through looking at social media and watching YouTube videos. I wore pajamas and comfy clothes as often as I could. That was the way I lived for a really, really long time until I started to notice that these convenient choices were actually making me feel depressed and unhappy.

It was sort of isolating me. You know, like if you're ordering everything to your door, you never have to leave the house. Also, I noticed I was not healthy. I wasn't eating healthy. I wasn't moving my body very often. I was very sedentary and I was eating a lot of unhealthy foods that I was getting delivered that were delicious. But you know, or like eating Cheez-Its for dinner because it was convenient. Like I wasn't healthy. I didn't feel healthy, and I just overall felt sort

of depressed by it. It took a bit of time to realize that perhaps the feelings of depression were caused by how convenient my life is. Which sounds ridiculous because I think most of us think of convenience as like something that enhances life, makes life easier and better, and gives us more time to do the things that we really want to do. But that wasn't my reality. What had happened to me was convenience didn't give me more time to do things that fulfilled me and made my life worth living, but instead just made me lazy and I wasn't really doing

anything. I sort of came to the conclusion like, wait, this is not the way I should be making decisions anymore. My default shouldn't be convenience. I need to sort of rethink this. And so very intuitively, I made the decision to start considering less convenient options, to open my mind to inconvenient options, to kind of push myself to be more of a functioning human being who actually does things themselves, you know, just to see how it'd make me feel. And it truly did help me. At the time, I did

this all very intuitively. I wasn't thinking about it. This was truly just me noticing a pattern in myself, me noticing that certain behaviors are making me unhappy and then making a change. But I actually did research on it recently because I was like, I don't know. Is anyone talking about this? And people are talking about it. I found this incredible article from Betsy Reed at The Guardian.

And let me read some snippets from it and then we can discuss. Evolutionary mismatch is the notion that we evolved for a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and that while our circumstances have changed drastically, our brains and bodies haven't. It says that our instincts are often horribly incompatible with our environment. This almost makes me feel better about the fact that for so many years I chose convenience as my default. We're clearly wired to do that.

None of us, we don't need to be feeling guilty about the fact that we love convenience. We're literally wired to love convenience. So let's all be easy on ourselves, okay? We're not that lazy. We're lazy, but we're lazy biologically. Like this is, we're supposed to be this way. We were born and bred this way.

Anyway, back to the article. Resistance was a necessary counterbalance to the intense flurries of activity that punctuated hunter-gatherer life. Foraging for food in driving rain or running to escape a dangerous animal. It's the reason we still ask, do I really have to be doing this? Shouldn't I save my energy? The people who were inclined to remain sheltered during a blizzard when the prospect of obtaining food was low were more likely to live and pass on their genes to

the next generation. And since those guys are our ancestors, we've inherited that disposition. Right? It's like, come on, you guys. We are lazy for a reason. We're prone to laziness for a reason. So be gentle with yourself. Okay? Okay, back to the article. More advanced technologies undoubtedly have their pleasures and opportunities too. But there's evidence to suggest that contemporary hyper-convenience can also make our lives more, not less, difficult. The sense of safety you get from staying home can make it more anxiety-inducing to go out later. The relief of avoiding an uncomfortable conversation with your spouse makes that conversation even harder to have subsequently.

Using a dating app to avoid the awkwardness of flirting only weakens your social skills over time. Modern hyperconvenience is a kind of deal with the devil. It is seductive because it appeals to our instincts, but it serendipitously depletes us. It has made it easier to get by but in many ways harder to truly succeed. Human flourishing and happiness is not just about subsidence, but also depends on growth, dynamic problem solving, and solidarity through hardship. In the technological world we have fashioned, we must sometimes make a conscious effort to act in opposition to our instincts. As a culture, we must remember and remind our young people

that while convenience feels good in the moment, our capacity to adapt and overcome challenges is part of our evolutionary heritage too, and central to the adventure of life. What a beautiful and incredible article from Betsy Reed at the fucking Guardian. She just spoke truth with that. It was kind of comforting to read that in a way

because I was like, oh, this all makes sense. There is a scientific explanation for why that lifestyle makes me depressed. No, I'm not the problem. It's sort of an evolutionary mismatch with who we are today and how we were wired to survive in the past. How beautiful it is to be explained by science. I also found a little article from the National Library of Medicine on the negative side effects

of a hyperconvenient life to summarize our diets are worse, we're less physically active, we lack social skills, and we lack in essential skills, like cooking and sewing and, I don't know, problem solving in general. Moral of the story is the hyper-convenient life that we have found ourselves in is not necessarily good for us. We've taken it to an extreme,

and life is now just a little bit too convenient. And that's not good for us in our brains, in our bodies. And I caught on to this on my own by some miracle. I felt that and I was like, okay, I need to fix this. And I did. And over the last, I don't know, few years maybe, I have reintroduced inconvenience into my life in a multitude of ways and I've found so much beauty in it. And I'm going to share some examples with you.

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Shine on with YSL Love Shine Plumping Lip Oil Gloss. Visit YSLBeauty.ca to elevate your lip game now. You know, I noticed this the other day when I was making my morning coffee, because I recently switched from a sort of automatic coffee machine, espresso machine, to a super manual espresso machine. Okay, so like what I used to have was, it was a Breville, incredible machine. I loved it. Where basically the machine would dose out the perfect amount of coffee grounds for you. You tamp it with an automatic tamper.

There's like, you know, normally at like a cafe or something, you'll see the barista weighing out the beans and like doing all this stuff and like, you know, tamping it by hand with that tamper. Like they put their elbow up in the air and they squish it down, you know. This thing literally had an automatic tamper. So you press a button for all the grinds to come out and then you have this tamper on

the side and you press it down and then you just twist it into the machine and press another button and next thing you know, you have beautiful espresso. Okay? So easy. But I recently, after many years, I finally felt ready to upgrade. I'm ready to truly master the art of being a barista. I'm ready to learn. I'm ready to elevate to the next level. You know, I don't need to be a home barista anymore.

Okay, it's, I can, let's level up. Okay, I have a fucking coffee company, for fuck's sake. Like, let's level the fuck up. So I did to a very fancy machine, like a barista, like cafe level machine. This is something that as a coffee company founder, I should have fucking gone a long time ago, but I had to do so much research

to figure out how to use this machine properly. It was like multiple weeks of learning to even just prepare for the machine to arrive. And then the machine arrived and it was like, okay, now I actually have to use it. And working out all the kinks of using it and mastering, not even mastering, sorry, being able to even just use the machine took like, I'm still figuring it out. But you know what's really funny? Even though my morning coffee routine takes probably five,

10 minutes longer than it used to, even though I went from like honestly two steps to closer to like 10, I have never enjoyed making my morning coffee more. The experience is so detailed. To like the gram of beans, to the like millimeter size of the coffee grounds. Like it's so detailed, it's so intimate,

and it's so manual. Like I have to do every single little thing myself. I'm measuring the grind size and getting it perfect. I'm doing the tests with the machine and with the grinds to get it to the perfect. I'm doing it all. And it's so much work. And sometimes it's fucking seven in the morning

and I'm tired and because there's too much moisture in the air, now for some reason the coffee, the espresso's not extracting properly, the grinds were too small and I don't know, weird shit happens like that that I don't know, weird shit happens like that that I don't even fully fucking understand still. And I have to go and readjust things manually and use my knowledge, I fucking love it.

The whole experience has truly connected me to my coffee. It's so intimate. I feel so much more excited about my coffee every day. It feels special. It feels like this little work of art. I worked so hard on this little shot of espresso. It gives it brand new meaning in my heart and in my mind. I mean, but the same thing goes for matcha.

Like I used to use the electric whisk for the matcha, which is not how it's traditionally done. Traditionally, you use a bamboo handheld whisk, but I was always too lazy and I used the electric whisk because I used the electric whisk for many different things in my caffeinated beverages routine. And I was like, well, I'll just use it here too. No, I'm totally on the bamboo whisk now.

There's something about the manual nature of it that just connects you with the beverage. Next, I have started taking road trips. I used to almost always choose a plane ride over a road trip. Like if I was, say, going to Northern California, that's a six hour drive in a one hour flight. I would always choose the flight. But I found that road trips are so much more fulfilling. There's something about a road trip

that is so fun. Like stopping to get gas, going into the gas station, getting a snack, calling people when you're on the road or if you're on a road trip with somebody else, having long, fun conversations, you know, entertaining yourself with an album or a podcast or something. Like, there's something more fulfilling about a road trip. You're grounded on the earth in a meditative state. You're getting to see the world, like, out your window. You don't have a choice.

You're forced to stare at the world around you for, you know, however many hours. There's something really beautiful about it. And even if you're going on a long distance sort of road trip, no worries. Break it up into three stops. You know, you don't have to do it all in one go. Enjoy the journey. Stop in a random city for a night. This is my new vibe. It's absolutely less convenient. And it doesn't always make sense. Like if I'm traveling for work, if I have a tight schedule,

okay, it doesn't always make sense. But when I can, I'm road tripping. And I've found that it's so much more adventurous. It feels so much more adventurous. And I end up having more fun. I also have kind of a crippling fear of flying on planes these days, so that is an added bonus,

but that's not why I pivoted towards the road trip. And it's ironic, because driving in a car is technically so much more dangerous, but I don't know, I'm loving the road trip. Road trip when you can, okay? I really don't order food delivery anymore. Road trip, road trip when you can, okay? I really don't order food delivery anymore. I used to order food delivery for almost every single meal.

When I first moved to Los Angeles, it was like, what kind of fun meal can I have now? Like it was too fun, but like I was ordering a lot of fancy meals, because I could, because it was all on Postmates, and there's a lot of fancy food in Los Angeles. If I wanted to order a gorgeous breakfast with gorgeous potatoes that took four hours to make and perfectly scrambled eggs, I could do that.

And I did a lot of times. I stopped appreciating the art of a beautifully cooked meal because I was eating a beautifully cooked meal all the time. I was eating restaurant food so often that going to a restaurant, I was like, this is literally just my normal diet. Like I eat this food all the time. And that's not how it's supposed to be. Unless you are an actual chef yourself

or you're married to a chef or something, that's like not normal. Not only did it make me feel like shit physically, like I just genuinely felt bad, but I was actually unhealthy. Like it was not a healthy lifestyle at all. It started by like, okay, I'm gonna order food delivery less

and order healthier options. And I did that for a few years. And then more recently, I just deleted food delivery apps off of all of my devices. Okay, so that's not even an option. And if I really, for some reason, have to order food delivery for some reason, or it's really a fun idea,

a good example would be recently my friends and I were watching an award show, and we were like, oh, let's order dinner. And it was a fun novelty, fuck it, let's order some pizza. And it was a delight, but I appreciated it so much because I never get to do it. But I will go eat out at a restaurant because I absolutely love it. But guess what?

Because I'm not ordering restaurant food all week long on food delivery apps, when the weekend comes around, I'm so excited to eat out. I'm so excited and it's such an incredible experience and the food tastes even better and I'm just, it's great. But that's not the only type of food delivery, okay? There's also grocery delivery. This I definitely do use a bit more often. However, I try not to.

I really try to only use grocery delivery when it's like, okay, I just worked a 15-hour day or something doing something, like I was at a shoot or something. Or I am about to travel and I have to get a certain amount of things done. I have deadlines for things and I need to finish them. So I'm working for a long time and I just don't have time to go to the grocery store. There are times when to me it makes sense to get groceries delivered because I'm still ultimately cooking everything from scratch. But I avoid it as much as possible.

And you know, when it comes to grocery shopping, like I love the experience of grocery shopping. And I always have, like this is not even a new thing, but it's always been like, I love the experience of grocery shopping, but I'm too lazy. Now it's like, okay, last resort, we're ordering the groceries.

Or like it's an emergency. Not an emergency. Like, oh my god, I forgot to buy this one thing. I need to get it now. But that's rare. You know? Like, majority of the time, I'm going to the store. I'm walking through the aisles myself. I'm socializing with the people. Not really. Socializing meaning like smiling at somebody if I catch them looking at me or something. Or like saying an extra warm hello to the cashier, like whatever. But it's just nice to be in that environment, to be around other people, you know?

Another sort of change that I've made is I've gone from primarily shopping online to primarily shopping in person, okay? So like, yes, I talked about food and groceries and all that. This is like about like clothes, or I need to pick up like stuff from Sephora. You know what I'm saying? This is like everything else. I used to be the most insane online shopper, okay?

And I'll be honest, I still online shop. There are things that I can only get online. There are times when, you know, I really just don't have time to go to, like, listen, yes, but I would say that my default mode of shopping nowadays is shopping in person. And whenever I can shop in person, I do. And that was not always the case, okay?

I really do like that it gets me out of the house and puts me in the world. I also love that, you know, I get to see and touch and feel things in person. Like if I'm buying clothes or buying makeup or something, it's so nice to be in store and to touch things and to feel things and to see new products and, you know, to truly experience the shopping experience. Whereas when you're shopping online, it's very two dimensional. You just get to see it. You don't get to feel it.

You don't get to look at it with a flashlight if you want. You don't get to like try it on. You don't get to do any of that. You just have to use your fucking imagination. And majority of the time when it shows up, you're not even 100% satisfied with it because it rarely lives up to your expectations. It's so helpful to experience a product before you buy it.

And not only does this make you a smarter shopper, but again, it gets you out in the world. Like running errands, being around people, even when you're not talking to other people, is so comforting. It's weirdly rejuvenating in a way, like being around people, being at home by yourself around no one all the time is, in my opinion, depleting. That will deplete you. Even if you're introverted, at a certain point that will deplete you.

There's something nice about being around people and you don't even need to socialize with them. It's just nice to be around people, to see people, to walk down the fucking street. And these are all things that used to be standard, we all did them all the time, but more and more so, we don't have to do them anymore. And it's so important to get back out there

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Shop the latest spring trends and find the looks you love at walmart.com slash trends. Now let's get back to the episode. Another lifestyle shift, getting dressed before I leave the house. I used to wear sweatpants and pajamas anytime I could. Anytime it was remotely acceptable, I would. And that's also somewhat of a new thing. It used to be completely unacceptable to wear pajamas out, to wear sweatpants out.

100 years ago, fuck no. Even like 50 years ago, probably not. It was unacceptable. Now you can wear whatever you want. You can wear your pajamas, you can wear a sweat set all you want. And listen, if I'm going to a workout class or I'm coming from a workout class

and I like stop at the grocery store, okay, listen, I'm not going to be wearing an outfit. I'm going to be in sweatpants because I just went to a workout. And I'm grateful for that convenience. I'm grateful that it's like socially acceptable now. If you are watching the video episode of this, you can see that I now have, or I did for a brief moment, I have two cats on my lap. And that is where I draw the line. Frankie, you're blocking the camera.

Okay, whatever. It's fine. I am grateful that it is now socially acceptable to wear sweatpants in public because, again, post-workout, if I want to run an errand, I'm glad that I don't need to put like a fancy outfit on after, you know, getting super sweaty. Like that's unnecessary to me. But majority of the time, if I'm, you know, going to get my nails done, or like going

to run an errand or whatever, I will put on an outfit. And like I still have like comfy outfits. Like don't get me wrong, I'm not like in a suit, okay? But I'm not wearing full on pajamas, you know what I'm saying? I really try to get dressed as often as I can. And I have a few pairs of these pants, okay? I'm actually wearing a pair right now

that are technically sweatpants, but they actually look like a chic cotton straight leg pant. Those are technically sweatpants, but me, those are like dressed up. Like I would even wear them to dinner perhaps. Maybe not, maybe not. But to lunch, to brunch, sure. So like I have my ways to be comfortable and convenient, even when getting a bit dressed up,

but like it feels good to feel presentable. And that's something that I didn't always value. But I find that I feel more confident. I feel more myself because I'm like expressing myself through my clothes. It's fun to like put on an outfit, whether it's a new outfit that I just put together or it's an outfit that I've worn for the last two weeks that I just really like. And every time I put it on, it makes me feel good. There's just something about it that I think is empowering.

And I like getting dressed, even though it is sometimes a bit of extra work. It's maybe a bit less comfortable sometimes, but I love it. I love getting dressed. I love getting dressed. And that's coming from somebody who used to wear like fleece pajama pants every day to middle school. Actually, I don't think that they allowed me

to wear the fleece pajama pants, but the second that school ended, I would put them on. I would even sometimes have them in my backpack so that the second school ended, I could go in the bathroom and change into them and go hang out with my friends in my sweatpants or in my pajama pants. You know what I'm saying? I've always loved being comfortable. I'm growing up and wearing normal clothes now.

So good for me. Speaking of clothes, I've also started mending my clothes when they fall apart instead of just, I don't know, taking it to a tailor or buying a new one. Like listen, there are times when I cannot fix a problem. Right? Like if a pair of pants rips completely like down the crotch and the button fell off and there's a huge hole,

I might not be able to fix that myself. But a little rip here, a little rip there, I am mending my clothes myself. I'm not just immediately taking them to a tailor or throwing them out, or not even throwing them out. I would never throw out clothes, but donate them or whatever. I used to be so fucking lazy, okay? And the second that something like had a rip in it,

I was like, Oh, it's done. No, it's not. That's ridiculous. You know, it's a little bit inconvenient to like fix your clothes or whatever. But that's normal. That's what we're supposed to do. Yeah, Emma, you fucking lazy sack of shit, wasteful idiot. Sorry, we should be nice to ourselves. But it's true. It's like, that is so incredibly wasteful and, I don't know, just like narrow-minded. Like, we can fix things ourself. It's not that hard to fix a hole. And I found that mending my own clothing, not in like big ways, but like, you know,

refastening a button or fixing a small hole, I found that it has bonded me to my clothing. Like, my favorite pair of pants got a small hole, I found that it has bonded me to my clothing. My favorite pair of pants got a little hole, like this seam kind of ripped in the hip area. And I was devastated. I was like, oh my God, what am I going to do? And then I was like, wait, I'm going to sew it myself. The fuck? Another example, I think I bought a jacket and the button I noticed was falling off.

And instead of being like, I need to take this back, this is a, this thing is ruined. I just sewed the button back on myself. It's all good. I'm not an idiot. I can sew a button on. And the connection that I'm building with my wardrobe now is so much more intimate and meaningful because I am taking care of these pieces of clothing. And it feels good to be connected to your belongings. Like that's a warm and fuzzy good feeling. And it's very rewarding. You know what else I've been doing?

Taking the stairs. If I see an elevator, I'm like, where's the stairs? This also is because I'm trying to get 10,000 steps a day. So I'm always trying to walk as much as I can. But it's also a good workout. It's a little booty burn in the middle of the day and that's kind of fun. You know, like to get a little sweat in randomly at 1 p.m.

Like I'm at, I don't know, like my doctor's office and it's on the seventh floor. Okay, I'm gonna take the fucking stairs, you know? Oh, I'm going to a meeting in this big fancy building. 20 flights of stairs, I'm a little bit early, let's try. Okay, let's try it. Like it's a little teensy little workout, but that type of stuff compounds over time

and can have incredible results. Like because I take the stairs so much now, now walking up the stairs is so easy. And when I first started doing it, it was exhausting and I hated it. And now I love it and I sweat, but I like feel strong and it's so fun. I like look forward to the stairs.

Take the stairs people. If you can. Why not? I've also pretty much completely eliminated convenient entertainment during the day. At night, I'll let myself watch a little TV. I'll maybe watch a little bit of YouTube. Especially if I'm with somebody else. Like if I'm hanging out with someone, let's watch TV. Let's watch a little bit of YouTube, especially if I'm with somebody else. Like, if I'm hanging out with someone,

let's watch TV, let's watch a little YouTube. On my own though, not so much. And during the day, absolutely not. Like during the work day, fuck no. No YouTube, no Instagram reels, no YouTube shorts, no television. I'm not even really listening to podcasts. Like, it is music only.

And the reason for that is, convenient entertainment, when abused, like it rewires your brain and it makes you not creative. Like I find that when I'm constantly consuming convenient entertainment, I feel uninspired and like sort of empty in my brain. It like weirdly depletes me mentally and I'm not quite sure why, but it does.

Not only is that bad for my job, but it also is a waste of time and it makes me depressed and it doesn't fulfill me. When you're not abusing convenient entertainment, you're forced to be entertained by getting work done or sitting around daydreaming using your imagination or listening to music or doing a little bit of art, cooking something. I don't know, you're like, you're forced to be entertained by things that are actually net positive in

your life. Do you know what I'm saying? That actually make you feel good, that are actually fulfilling for you. And I found that is absolutely true in my life. I'm overall just happier as a result. And last but not least, instead of buying nut milk and sparkling water, two very specific niche things that I consume constantly, instead of buying these things from the store, I make them from scratch. Why? Because, well, in the case of the sparkling water, it just feels wasteful to be going through five cans of sparkling water a day, that's number one. But number two, I don't know, there's something kind of fun.

I can control how carbonated my water is. I know, oh, if I do three pumps of the CO2 into the water, it's perfectly carbonated for me. Same thing with the nut milk, I sweeten it myself. I put the perfect amount of sweetness in it, just like a little bit of maple syrup. I can flavor it with extracts. I can use whatever nuts I want.

It's like personalized to me. But also again, I buy nut milk constantly. It's so much better to make it myself and not be going through like a bottle of it a day. It's like unnecessary waste, I guess. And listen, I'm wasteful in other ways, okay? I'm not some sort of fucking saint, okay? But I think, in my opinion,

you don't need to be a perfect saint. You don't need to choose the less convenient option 100% of the time when it comes to consuming products that come in packaging, right? It's impossible to produce zero waste as a human being, unfortunately. But it's about, oh, this makes sense in my lifestyle, and so, hey, fuck it, I might as well do it.

This makes more logical sense. Little efforts like that are better than nothing. You know what I mean? And I feel like people tend to be very all or nothing. Who cares? Or like, Emma, you're being wasteful in other ways. Stop like praising yourself for, you know, making your own nut milk and making your own sparkling water. You're only like, you're barely even helping and you still, you make a bunch of other ways. Sure I do, but it's better than nothing. Karen? Or maybe

Karen? What would a Karen say? I don't know. Anyways. This episode is brought to you by FX's Dying for Sex on Disney+. Based on the podcast of the same name, Dying for Sex tells the story of Molly, who is diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Determined to feel everything she can before she can't feel anything, she decides to leave her unhappy marriage to explore her sexuality with some encouragement from her best friend, Nikki. FX's Dying for Sex, streaming April 4th only on Disney+. Sign up now at DisneyPlus.com. So those are some examples of how I've introduced inconvenience into my life, possibly for the

first time. And there's probably more inconveniences that I've introduced into my life, but for the first time. And there's probably more inconveniences that I've introduced into my life, but I can't remember. So those are all the ones that I can remember for now. And I am constantly striving to introduce more. By introducing all of these inconveniences, I've absolutely re-instilled purpose into my life. These inconveniences make me more present in my life. Reconnect me to the

journey. Like I feel like when you choose the convenient option, you miss out on the journey. Inconvenience oftentimes creates a journey. It creates adventure. And that was mentioned in the article that I just read to you. Inconvenience sparks adventure without a doubt. It's pretty profound how it does that. You know what I mean? My life feels like more of an adventure since I've introduced these inconveniences. But that's not to say that I don't still choose

the convenient option sometimes. I absolutely do. There are some conveniences that I do not wanna give up, that perhaps other people would be open to giving up, but I don't want to give these things up. Like, I'm never going to stop using my appliances, okay? My phone, my computer, my dishwasher, my ice maker, my electric kettle, my microwave, my water heater, my car. The list goes on. There are so many convenient pieces of technology that I will never give up. I don't want to give them up.

There are some people who are like, I'll get a flip phone. I don't want to get a flip phone. Why? Because I love maps. I love being able to use navigation. I love FaceTime. I love, I don't actually love FaceTime, but I love that it's an option. I love being able to work on my phone on the fly.

I love, I love my phone. Some people are like, you know what, fuck it, I'm just going to start taking cold showers. That doesn't make sense for me. Like I love a hot, warm, comfortable shower. Are there some benefits to a cold shower? Is it sort of a psychological challenge that can potentially benefit you? Are there even probably health benefits? Probably. But I don't care. That's not an inconvenience that I'm inspired to integrate into my life. I don't think it would actually benefit my life. I live in Los Angeles. I'm not gonna downgrade to a bike, right?

I need to drive everywhere. I'm not gonna say, you know what, I'm only gonna travel by bike because it's more inconvenient and it's an adventure. It would definitely be an adventure, but that's not an adventure I wanna go on. Another thing, I love apps. I love Spotify for music, okay?

I love being able to open that and listen to any song I want. It's incredibly convenient and it's awesome. And I'm not trying to eliminate that convenience from my life. Same thing with, again, I keep mentioning the Maps app, like GPS apps, are you kidding me? What would we do without them? No, that's not going anywhere for me.

Calculator app, like what, am I gonna start carrying around a calculator in my bag? No. Like, I love apps. I also eat quite a few semi-processed foods. Okay, I'm not cooking everything from scratch. Like, I'll buy pre-made cereal or like a soup in a can or even like pre-cut vegetables, veggie burgers or like pre pre-made burger buns, or ketchup, or mustard. Like there are so many different things that I don't make from scratch, that are pre-made, that are processed, that are convenient. I'm not trying to eliminate those from my life.

I love my pre-made super processed veggie burger that I eat. You know, a pre-made tomato sauce for pasta night. That sauce is probably gonna be better than anything I could have made. Actually, maybe not. Homemade that sauce is probably gonna be better than anything I could have made. Actually, maybe not. Homemade pasta sauce is good. But like, we don't always have the time to cook from scratch when we can, sure, let's do it.

But like, to cook everything from scratch completely, ridiculous, you know what I'm saying? And again, you know, I still order things online. I still order things to my door. I still sometimes order food delivery, grocery delivery, because sometimes that is the best option. That's not always a convenience I'm willing to give up. There's a balance to strike here.

It's clear that convenience can be harmful, and it is harmful, but it's also clear that we can't give it all up. We can't go throw ourselves into the forest with no clothes, no food, no nothing, and try to survive. Like, why would we do that? That's also bad for our well-being, right? There's a happy medium. But it's kind of challenging to figure out where the line is. I did some thinking on this.

I think convenience can be good when it helps you work towards your goals more efficiently. Like, if food delivery makes it easier for you to work all day and then spend time with your family in the evening to create like a healthier work-life balance, then I think in that case, the convenience of food delivery makes sense. You're already doing a lot. You're, you're busy. You know what I'm saying? You don't need to go to the grocery store. You don't need to have that social time at the store. You don't need to browse through the aisles. You have other more important things to cater to. You know what I'm saying? Like it's when you're in a phase of perhaps laziness or comfort and you're in this routine of making

convenient choices and you're not really getting anything done. That's when it's like, you need to go to the store. That's going to be good for you. But like if you're making an incredible, beautiful, massive Thanksgiving dinner and you want to buy everything pre-chopped, pre-marinated, pre-this, pre-that, because it's going to allow you to cook more food and make a more elaborate feast. You're overwhelmed and you're like, I have to make some convenient choices here. So be it. You're doing something incredible in large and for your whole family, and it's a huge undertaking. It's okay to cut some corners.

You know what I'm saying? Or not even cut some corners, but to make some convenient options. If convenience helps you reach your ultimate goal and you're still gonna be going on a journey, you know what I mean? Like, I think it's okay. I think convenience in that case is actually great. I also think too, convenience can be good

if it truly sparks joy. And I'm talking about short term and long term. Let's use the coffee machine as an example. If you absolutely love your automatic coffee machine, like for example, the coffee machine that my mom has is like this insane coffee machine that like you literally just press a screen and like choose what drink you want on a screen, like a little mini iPad, and it makes the drink for you. Actually, that was, it was my coffee machine a few years ago, but then I gave it to her because she likes automatic things more than me. And she

loves it. It's incredibly convenient, but it brings her joy. She finds more joy from that convenient coffee machine than she would from like the manual machine that I use. She would hate the machine I have. There's many elements of her life that are inconvenient, that you know she chooses to be inconvenient. Her coffee is this luxurious experience and that sparks joy for her. If you love airplane travel, if you love being on the plane, if you love sitting there and watching the movies, you know, if you love the airplane food, if you like looking out the window, if you like flying on an airplane,

maybe it doesn't make sense for you to start doing more road trips because you genuinely love airplane travel. You love the experience. I hate it. If convenience truly sparks joy, short-term and long-term, it's not bad. I think convenience is bad when it prevents you from learning skills. If you food delivery so much that now you just have no clue how to cook, that's not good. If you watch television and YouTube and you consume so much convenient entertainment

that not only are you isolated, but also you don't even have social skills because all of your social interactions are just through virtual entertainment, that's not good. If it's getting in the way of you developing your skills as a human being, that's when it's not good. Convenience is also bad when it isolates you. If convenience makes it so that you never have to leave the house, you never have to face people, that is not good.

Ultimately, convenience is bad when it makes you feel depressed. When you're not doing things, you know what I'm saying? When you're not doing things, when you're not completing tasks, when you're not doing little things like that throughout your day, you can get depressed. And I did. Those little tasks make us feel satisfied. They make us feel like we have purpose. And yeah, a lot of them are small and mundane and inconsequential, but for whatever reason, they give us purpose. And I do think it goes back to the hunter-gatherer mindset. It's like, in order for us to hunt

and gather, our brain needed to release happy chemicals when we did it. And it's true that I think the adventure of life is so much richer when life isn't so convenient. I don't know, that's all I have for today, okay? That's it, fuck it. I almost ironically wore my pajamas to record this episode, but I didn't, I actually put on a cute top. It's just sort of symbolic and beautiful

that I got a little bit dressed up for this episode. Not really, I literally am just wearing a sweater. Anyway, that's all I have for today. I really inspire you all to ask yourself how you can infuse a bit more inconvenience into your life because I think it's a really incredible thing and I think it's important. And it's important to be aware of

because until you're aware of it, you just are an autopilot making convenient choices. It's important to be aware of because until you're aware of it, you just are an autopilot making convenient choices. It's good to be aware of it. That's the most important step. And then from there, it's about figuring out what works for you. And I wish you all luck on that journey. And I just love you all and appreciate you all. And thank you all for listening and hanging out.

It was truly a pleasure and it always is. And if you had fun, tune in to Anything Goes every Thursday and Sunday on YouTube and Spotify if you want to watch me talk or anywhere else you stream podcasts if you just want to listen. At Anything Goes on social media, at Emma Chamberlain on social media, that's me. And check out my coffee company, chamberlaincoffee.com, at Chamberlain Coffee, perhaps in a store near you and at the Westfield Century City Mall in Los Angeles, if you're in Los Angeles. That's all I have for today. I need to make another caffeinated beverage. I'm really feeling myself just kind of drift away. I need a matcha. So I'm going to go make a matcha. Oh my God, it sounds so good. I'm going to make a matcha and I'm God, it sounds so good. I'm gonna make a matcha and I'm gonna just absolutely savor

every little sip of that matcha. Okay, I love you all, I appreciate you all. Thank you for listening and hanging out. And we will talk very soon. Bye.