Once, we waited. We wrote letters. We stood in lines. We asked neighbours for sugar instead of summoning it through an app. Now, we live in a different rhythm—faster, louder, more restless. Groceries in 10 minutes. Medicines in 8. A pizza at 12. Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy, Zomato—they race against the clock while we sit back and scroll.
At first, it felt like progress. Need detergent? Tap and it’s at your door. Forgot onions? No problem—delivered faster than you can find your wallet. But convenience, dressed in the glitter of tech, comes with a silent cost.
We’ve forgotten how to wait. Patience—once a virtue—is now seen as a flaw. If a delivery takes more than 20 minutes, we get irritated. If a video takes 10 seconds to load, we move on. In this world of “instant gratification,” stillness feels wrong.
And this shift isn’t harmless. The need for “now” is rewiring our minds. We grow anxious with delays, angry in traffic, bored without a screen. The moment of pause that once gave us breath is now lost in the noise of constant consumption.
Even our joy is shrinking. We used to enjoy the process—cooking with what we had, stepping out to the market, talking to the shopkeeper. Now, we swipe and forget. The app becomes the middleman for every moment. A Sunday grocery trip with family? Replaced by a two-minute order while lying in bed.
And the real cost isn’t just in our peace.
Delivery boys, chasing impossible time lines, often ignore traffic rules. They ride like time is bleeding. Speed breakers mean nothing, red lights are treated like suggestions. One urgent order for milk or body soap may end in someone’s injury—or worse, their life.
That pizza on your plate, which might not even be cooked properly, there is not much value or nutrition in this, just think over it.
This isn’t progress. It’s danger wrapped in efficiency.
And with every bike that zooms, fuel is burned unnecessarily. More deliveries mean more pollution—more vehicles on the road for things we didn’t even need urgently.
A forgotten toothpaste tube doesn’t justify another puff of smoke in the air.
An unplanned craving for ice cream shouldn’t demand someone else’s risky sprint.
We’re not just buying faster. We’re buying more—and often without thinking. Budgeting goes out the window when you can order at midnight while half-asleep. What once required a list now just needs a mood.
And in this digital race, small businesses—your local kirana, your corner vegetable shop—are the ones falling behind. They can’t compete with 10-minute delivery. They can’t spend crores on advertising or hire fleets of bikers. And slowly, we stop visiting them. We stop seeing them, familiarity fades and so does the human touch. We are becoming disconnected with reality.
Meanwhile, our dependence grows. What began as a luxury became a habit. We don’t check our kitchen shelves—we just check the app. We don’t walk to the store—we wait for the knock on the door.
Life becomes reactive, not intentional.
We don’t cook because Swiggy is easier. We don’t clean because the mop will arrive tomorrow. We don’t even try because “there’s an app for that.” And so we scroll, we tap, we wait—not for joy, but for packages.
Yes, time is saved. But something else is lost.
Our rhythms. Our patience. Our interactions. Our sense of enough.
This isn’t just about delivery apps. It’s about the culture they create. A culture where speed beats safety, where quantity defeats quality, and where the joy of doing is replaced by the habit of ordering. It’s not wrong to enjoy convenience. But we must ask: At what cost?
Is every urgent craving worth the fuel it burns, the risks it takes, the calm it steals? In our rush to save time, are we spending life?
Let’s slow down.
Let’s buy only what we need. Let’s wait, walk, and wonder again. Let’s visit that kirana shop, cook that simple meal, talk to the people we’ve replaced with screens.
Let’s re-enjoy the time when we used to go shopping with our families on Sundays. Buy things only after really seeing them, checking that they’re right and tested okay to use. We made budgets, we planned purchases. Let’s wait again at a nukkad for a rickshaw. It may take a few more minutes than Uber or Ola, but we’ll surely feel calmer—and our tolerance will be tested, and strengthened. At least it won’t cost someone’s life.
The race against time doesn’t need to be won.
Sometimes, the real victory lies in choosing to pause.
