I watched an unsettling movie recently. It was about a murderous, young woman during the first world war. The title character, Pearl, lived and worked on a farm with her strict German mother and ailing father, and dreamed of becoming a dancer in the pictures. I watched it too close to bedtime and ended up ruining my night’s sleep, but what I was left thinking about the next morning was how much work we don’t do anymore.

Pearl and her mother spent their time tending to the animals, preparing corn and potatoes for their dinner, and riding into town to pick up a prescription from the pharmacy. Much of one’s time one hundred years ago was consumed by what I would consider life maintenance. Growing, processing, and preserving our own food was common. Wide-spread adoption of the dishwasher didn’t happen until the 1950s, so if you used a dish you had to take the time to hand-wash it afterward. Machines to wash and dry clothing existed but were rare. Clothes were washed, rung out, and line dried; a process that required more time and some fore thought. Nothing is worse than going out to collect your dry clothes from the line to find that it’s raining. There was no shipment of fast fashion arriving at the local Target every week, so I’d made sense to darn your own socks. Same-day delivery wasn’t possible so planning your pick ups was necessary. And you were lucky if you didn’t have to boil water to warm your bath. Back then, if you wanted to take a day off from chores, you had to take a day off from living.

When visiting friends in California years ago, we all stayed out late and were tired and hungry when we arrived back at their house well after dinner time. My friend ordered door dash with a few taps on her phone. Each of us had a burger, fries, and a drink delivered to their doorstep within the hour by some faceless delivery person who I can only hope received a generous tip for juggling nine milkshakes on the drive.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think there is something important about doing things for yourself. I don’t often have goods delivered if there is an option for me to pick them up, and I think an important part of the take-out experience is taking it out. I realize that I am lucky to have the time to run errands and a reliable vehicle to transport my Chinese food, and I’m certainly not claiming I have never had a pizza delivered, but I tend to think if I’m not willing to exert the effort to acquire my sustenance, it’s possible that I don’t really need it. Did we really need burgers, fries, and shakes that late in the evening or could we have made do with some cheese and crackers from the fridge?

In the past, people made do with less because there was less—the polar opposite of today with its eternal promise of more of everything. There seems to be a presumption that everyone should have everything. And if you have the means, you can pay to reduce the amount of effort you expend bringing everything to you. Over the holidays, I watched a commercial for one of those “emergency” delivery service apps. A little boy requested a bike from Santa and it didn’t arrive in time for Christmas morning, so his mother utilized the app to bring an identical bike to her door the same day. “Santa?” the little boy questions when the bike magically appears. “Sure.” his mom answers. No recognition is given to the human spending their Christmas delivering gifts to parents who have enough money to buy two bikes but not enough to buy themselves time management skills. I think about the contrast with Pearl’s time—around the turn of the century—gifts took time to procure. Pearl would have to plan weeks in advance to have something delivered, or spend hours of her time crafting a gift from scratch. Part of the gift is the thought that goes into it. Popular opinion says that’s the part that counts. If the little boy’s mom can order his gift the same day when he complains he didn’t get what he really wanted, what is it that he’s actually receiving?

I wonder how all of these tasks we’ve outsourced might effect how we manage our daily emotions. Maybe that’s why struggles with anxiety seem to be the rule rather than the exception in society today. Do we benefit emotionally from our the accomplishment of patching a pair of jeans instead of replacing them? What about the spark of creative inspiration needed to cook a meal with the ingredients on hand? Have we forgotten how to plan ahead now that we have the option to place an order and select rush shipping? Instead of experiencing the agitation of life, we’re investing a few more dollars to avoid it, and then we worry about how long we’ll need to work to replace them. It seems our every need is tied to a cost. What if the frustration, fatigue, and effort we expend to live our lives directly gives us something that we can’t get from spending money for someone else to do it?

Without giving away too much of the movie’s plot—Pearl has the need for a few graves by the end of it. I thought about how back then it’s likely she might have had to dig them herself, probably somewhere on her own land. Is it possible the task could help her process the grief? Physical exertion is supposed to be beneficial in the grieving process. Maybe the effort of lifting shovel after shovel of heavy dirt does something for us emotionally. And if the bereaved is not physically able to dig, calling a neighbor to help might provide some other psychological benefit. Community, maybe? It’s unlikely anyone would personally dig a grave for a deceased family member these days. Now, someone you will never meet digs the hole using heavy machinery and then covers any disturbed earth with AstroTurf until the memorial is complete. The family might not even see the dirt their loved one will lie in. Did we further abstracted death by outsourcing its logistics?

Listen, I don’t see myself digging any graves in the future, I have a dishwasher that I use daily, and I would visit a laundry mat before I would fill up a bucket of suds should my washing machine break down. I am not saying that all of our modern conveniences should go, but I do wonder if at least a few of them have surpassed optimal convenience and have started their way back down the bell curve. A few years ago, I went through my kitchen and got rid of any tool that wasn’t multi-purpose. I discarded avocado and apple slicers, onion savers, garlic presses, and a spatula specifically designed for large pancakes. Cooking became more enjoyable with less. I could find things when I needed them without digging through a drawer full of junk, and I found that a sharp knife can do the job of a thousand gadgets. I could do the job of a thousand gadgets just by knowing how to use the right tool. Keeping things simple in the kitchen actually made me less likely to reach for a take-out menu. I feel confident cooking knowing I have everything I need to get the job done. Being able to control the ingredients and portions makes it more likely my family will enjoy the meal, and I feel fulfilled being able to provide them with something to eat without paying the premium for someone else to prepare it.