This is the price you pay for convenience.
For the past two years, my life has become increasingly isolated. I work from home, shop online and use convenience apps for everything. I’m a modern-day “insourcer”, choosing to stay at home and manage my life using technology, removing myself from endless opportunities to interact with others.
I thought it was what I wanted. Stressed out from commuting to and from work, raising my children and trying to get everything done, I began making what I thought were smarter choices. I started working from home, bought a cross trainer so I could exercise at home and started doing majority of my shopping online.
My life had become an example of extreme insourcing, occasional work commitments and school meetings.
Sure my life was easier, but I wasn’t any happier. I was lonely and increasingly isolated. I realised I had to make urgent changes and get back out there into the world. I could still be an insourcer, but in a more measured way.
The term insourcing was previously used to describe a business practice whereby something was handled internally by a company. Now insourcing is being used to describe how many of us are conducting our entire lives, by using technology to access goods, services, jobs and even friendships using technology, either from work or from home.
There is hardly anything we can’t insource these days and the concern is that it is causing us to become increasingly isolated because human contact has become optional. Isn’t that a sad thought? If we choose to, we can go through an entire day without interacting with anyone who isn’t part of our inner circle.