I went to the grocery store today. And risking sounding a bit repetitive and a bit like a broken record, I just wanted to highlight once again how truly awesome the modern world we live in is.
I’ve had a long weekend. It was the annual trip that my high school buddies and I take to my parents’ cottage. It’s always a blast and this year was no different. We hung on the boat, played a lot of games, messed around on jet skis and dirt bikes, talked about old times, and drank borderline copious amounts of alcohol. It’s an awesome tradition and I really hope that we can keep it going as the years go on and we all follow different paths.
But great and fun as it is, it’s needless to say 13 guys leave quite a mess behind. Everyone is pretty good about helping but I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to using my parents’ things so I spend quite a bit of time cleaning up. But I digress.
After this long weekend, with long nights, lots of partying, and a long day of cleaning afterwards, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do for dinner. There was no food left at the cottage (13 guys pretty much will clean you out of anything and everything) and no place really delivers out here so I ran up to the store that’s about five minutes away.
Not wanting to spend a lot of time cooking something I went to the frozen food aisle. As I was walking down the aisle trying to decide what I wanted to eat I was struck at the sheer variety of food available at this small grocery store in a small town in western Michigan. Like every grocery store you can choose from a huge range of types of food from Italian, to Japanese, to Chinese, to good old-fashioned American food, to healthy options designed to help you lose weight, etc.
Now I don’t eat much frozen food. I enjoy cooking and don’t care for the typically high amounts of sodium and other preservatives that are usually found in it. But man after a hard day and a long weekend you can’t beat the convenience. Having food from all around the world (yes I realize calling a frozen, microwave Thai stir-fry “Thai” is a great injustice) all in one spot that tastes pretty good (don’t be a food snob) is nothing short of an amazing accomplishment.
You have the world’s foods at your fingertips that can be cooked often in less than 30 minutes and all for extremely cheap. This along with fast food quick and easy recipes you can find on the internet not only help you when you’re in a bind and need something quick and easy, but allow nearly everyone to enjoy ample amounts of quality food. The gravity of this cannot be overstated. This is something unique in all of human history—even up until only 100 years ago food could be very hard to come by for people stuck in poverty. It’s very interesting to note that poor people are on average more overweight. But that is even starting to change. Now that we’ve essentially solved hunger for most people in the western world people are focusing on eating healthier and creating cheap but healthy options.
I’ve said it many times before but I’ll say it again. We live in an amazing world and are truly lucky to occupy such a point in history. The world is getting better every day and it’s little things like this that remind us of that. That food is extremely easy and cheap to come by and we have more options than kings had 200 years ago. Think about the wealth that is contained just in one Walmart. Recognize the awesomeness and enjoy how truly crazy great of a time we are living in.