When Convenience Becomes Dependence

“Your flight has already departed.” The Air Canada staff member at the Frankfurt Airport transfer counter told me this in a flat, nonchalant voice. I stood there dismayed, my mind racing through the repercussions. When was the next flight to Toronto? Would it get me there in time to catch my onward flight to Ottawa? And would I still make it to the program scheduled for that evening? How had I ended up here? Soon after Janmashtami, I had set out from Nashik for a long journey to Canada: by car to Mumbai, then by air through Frankfurt and Toronto to Ottawa, where I was scheduled to speak on the evening I arrived. My Mumbai–Toronto ticket had a connection in Frankfurt with a layover of one hour and fifty minutes. I had made tighter connections before, so I wasn’t particularly concerned. Moreover, because both flights were on the same ticket, I knew that if I missed the connection, the airline would have to rebook me. What I failed to factor in was that my Toronto–Ottawa flight was on a separate ticket. Missing one connection could therefore unravel the rest of the journey. Normally, I use wheelchair assistance at airports. With my crutches, walking long distances while carrying my backpack can be difficult, and wheelchair assistance makes airport travel much easier. At Frankfurt, however, mobility assistance worked through a relay system. Instead of one person meeting me at the aircraft and taking me all the way to my next gate, different assistants and buggies handled different stages of the journey. And between those stages came the waits. At three different points, I waited for more than twenty minutes—for an assistant, a wheelchair, or a buggy. Several buggies passed me, but their drivers told me they couldn’t take me because my name wasn’t on their list. As my boarding time drew dangerously close, I finally stopped a passing buggy and explained the urgency. They took me along, but by then it was too late. That was how I found myself standing at the transfer counter, hearing the words, “Your flight has already departed.” It soon became clear that there was no later flight that could get me to Toronto in time for my separately booked flight to Ottawa. That meant a new ticket had to be purchased. More painfully, I could no longer reach Ottawa in time for my evening program, which had to be canceled. I did one program the following day before leaving for Toronto, but the canceled program had been expected to be the better-attended of the two. Later, as I replayed the missed connection in my mind, an uncomfortable question occurred to me: Why had I kept waiting? Why hadn’t I simply started walking? The Option I Didn’t Even Consider What made the question particularly uncomfortable was that walking through an airport was hardly beyond my experience. During my Australia and New Zealand tour, I had actually stopped routinely using wheelchair assistance. The change had begun almost accidentally at Auckland Airport. I met a senior devotee with whom I wanted to continue talking as he headed toward his boarding gate. Rather than end the conversation and wait for wheelchair assistance, I simply started walking with him. To my surprise, I found that I could manage quite comfortably. Thereafter, throughout much of that tour, I walked through airports instead of using wheelchair assistance. Apart from giving me greater independence, the walking also gave me some welcome exercise. When I returned to India, however, routinely walking through airports became less practical. At many airports abroad, the person receiving me could meet me closer to the baggage-claim area. In India, I would often need to take my checked baggage on a trolley for a substantial distance to the pickup point. Walking with crutches was manageable; pushing a baggage trolley while doing so was not. So I resumed using wheelchair assistance. There was nothing wrong with that decision. The assistance was useful, and there were good reasons for using it. But somewhere along the way, something had changed. At Frankfurt, even when I could see that waiting for assistance was putting my connection in danger, the thought of simply getting up and walking had not occurred to me. The most troubling realization was not that the wheelchair assistance had failed me; it was that the thought of functioning without it had failed to occur to me. An Inconvenient Truth About Convenience What had begun as a convenience had quietly become a dependence. The evidence of that dependence was not that I used wheelchair assistance. There were perfectly legitimate reasons for using it. The evidence was that I could no longer spontaneously imagine functioning without it. I began thinking of this as a kind of consciousness creep. Something had entered my life as one useful option. Gradually, it had become my preferred option. Eventually, it had become the only option I even thought of. The Bhagavad Gita describes knowledge in the mode of ignorance as becoming attached to one limited aspect of reality as if it were everything (18.22). My situation was obviously a mundane application of a much broader principle, but the verse helped me recognize what had happened: one facility had expanded in my consciousness until it had almost crowded out every alternative. That led me to a distinction I want to remember: Convenience makes one way of doing something easier; dependence makes every other way of doing it almost unthinkable. A convenience helps us function with less effort, greater speed, or greater comfort. But if using that convenience gradually erodes our ability—or even our willingness—to function without it, convenience has acquired a hidden price. The Question Beyond Wheelchairs As I reflected on the incident, I began wondering: what other conveniences in my life have quietly become dependencies? If a wheelchair can so easily change from a convenience to a dependence, how much more easily might this happen with artificial intelligence and its instant answers? AI can now do for us, almost instantaneously, things that previously required substantial time, thought, and effort. That can be an extraordinary convenience. But technology should expand our abilities, not quietly erode them. If a tool saves me effort, that may well be progress. But if repeated use of that tool gradually takes away my ability—or even my inclination—to function without it, that progress has acquired a hidden cost. The issue is not whether I should use such facilities, but whether I can use them without becoming dependent on them. For me, that question ultimately comes down to service. The missed connection brought several losses; I hope its lesson will prove more enduring than those losses. I prayed to Krishna: Whatever facilities you provide for my service, let me gratefully use them. But let my dependence on those facilities never take away my ability or willingness to serve without them. May my determination to serve never become dependent on the conveniences available for serving. And when convenience disappears, may service continue—even if more slowly, messily, and inconveniently. *** 18.22 And that knowledge by which one is attached to one kind of work as the all in all, without knowledge of the truth, and which is very meager, is said to be in the mode of darkness. The post When Convenience Becomes Dependence first appeared on Chaitanya Charan Das, Bhagavad Gita ISKCON .