Do we have to live this way?

Discounting, Wall-E, and the moving sidewalk

By the time she noticed it, she’d walked five blocks past the restaurant. It wasn’t just exhaustion from that overpriced climbing gym day pass; the sidewalk felt like it was literally moving beneath her feet.

And she noticed she wasn’t alone. Everyone around her glid effortlessly, scrolling phones, sipping lattes. The whole scene reminded her of the humans in Wall-E, slouched in their hover-chairs, Food-in-a-Cup in their right hands, and limpid smiles on their rotund faces.

But there were no hover-chairs on Amsterdam Avenue. No hidden motors. No hologram chat screens.

Just the quiet thrum of everyday inertia pushing her, and everyone else, along, insensate, unnoticing, dully numb.

It was almost like she’d unwittingly made a left-hand turn on a Tuesday in 2016, and she’d been shopping at the same grocery store for the nine years since; like she didn’t exactly pick this direction, but here she was, gliding forward anyway.

It felt, honestly, like she’d been on a decade-long moving sidewalk.

Sound familiar?

It should, because chances are you’ve been where she was. We all do it.

We stick to routines that no longer serve us, to jobs we barely tolerate, to relationships that have all the passion of a DMV waiting line in central Texas, and decisions we vaguely regret—but keep making anyway.