When Life Got Easier, My Anxiety Got Worse

Life has never been more convenient.

I can order food to my door in minutes, buy clothes with a few taps on my phone, and get a taxi almost anywhere without even speaking to someone.

But strangely, the more convenient my life became, the more anxious I started to feel.

Hi, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Xavier, but I go by Xave.

Why I started this blog

Recently I’ve been dealing with quite a lot of anxiety : about how I look, about whether I’m doing well enough in life, and about where things are going. From speaking to people around me, it feels like a lot of people are experiencing something similar.

So I started doing a bit of a deep dive into my life and asking myself a simple question:

What changed? When did things start feeling heavier? When did things become stressful?

What I noticed

The strange thing is, I realised I actually felt less anxious when life was less convenient.

Which sounds backwards. Convenience is meant to make life easier, right?

But the type of convenience I had slowly built into my life didn’t seem to be helping me.

Being able to buy cheap clothes online meant my wardrobe was full, but most of it felt like tat. Instead of making getting dressed easier, it actually gave me decision fatigue.

Being able to get takeaway delivered to my door in under an hour meant I slowly stopped cooking.

And being able to get taxis everywhere meant I stopped walking — something I used to really enjoy.

Little by little, all these conveniences were making my life less healthy, not more.

The bigger picture

When I looked into it, I realised it wasn’t just me.

Research suggests people today buy around 60% more clothing than they did 20 years ago, and many wardrobes are full of things that barely get worn.

The same thing has happened with food. In the UK, the takeaway delivery market has grown by more than 70% in the last decade, largely thanks to delivery apps making it easier than ever to order food straight to our doors.

Even taxis have changed. The number of taxis has grown by about 30% over the last ten years, driven by ride-hailing apps that make it possible to get a car almost anywhere with a few taps on your phone.

More stuff. More choice. More convenience.

But for me at least, that wasn’t making life feel better.

The changes I’m making

So I’ve decided to try a slightly different approach.

First, I’m cutting down my wardrobe to the clothes I actually wear. Anything I don’t use will be sold, donated, or stored. I’m also keeping seasonal clothes in the garage and rotating them when needed so my wardrobe stays simple and I don’t face dozens of decisions every morning.

Second, I’m learning to cook more of my own food. Hopefully healthier than what I was ordering online and also I feel like this is a life skill i have robbed myself of.

And finally, I'm going to get back into walking and cycling, which I am most excited for. As a former lover of the outdoors, I find it too conveniently, especially with WFH life to sometimes not leave the house for days!

None of this is about being perfect or cutting everything out. It’s just about stepping back from some of the habits convenience created and seeing if a simpler way of living feels better.

That’s really what this blog is about.

Figuring things out, one change at a time.

Maybe life didn’t get harder.

Maybe it just got too convenient.