If you’ve spent any time in front of a television lately, you have probably heard that they are now making vehicles that will parallel park themselves.

For anyone who has to deal with parallel parking on a daily basis, this is no doubt a fabulous invention. No more bashing bumpers, no more trying and retrying to squeeze an 18-foot vehicle into an 18 foot ½ inch space—what could be better?

I’m sure that someone is already working on inventing something that will take care of any inconveniences we might have left. After all, people have already invented electric floor warmers, portable personal toilets (I’m not kidding) and devices that can fit 100 albums worth of music in the palm of your hand.

I have to be honest though: I wonder sometimes if perhaps we are taking the convenience thing just a bit too far.

I was doing some work in an office recently, and wandered over to the soda machine for a drink. Even back in the old days, buying a soda would have been a pretty simple transaction. But now, apparently, they have figured out a way to make it even more so. Not only does the machine dispense the drink, but a little mechanical lift brings the drink from wherever it was to a hole that is roughly waist level. That’s right: you no longer have to bend down to pick up the drink.

I can’t say I’d like to go back to the days of the horse and buggy, nor do I have the time set aside to grind my own wheat. I probably wouldn’t even last long without e-mail. But is this really necessary? And who was the person that said, “Geez, this is a really nice drink and all, but too bad I had to bend over and pick it up”?

These days there is something you can find to help you with pretty much everything, including your health. Treadmills will keep your pace and count the calories you’ve burned. Lean Cuisine will portion everything nicely and freeze dry it for you. All that is left to do is throw it in the microwave, which will have it ready in less time than it takes a “conventional oven” to even heat up.

Last week, just for a change of pace, I spent a little time walking down by the newly refurbished Powhatan Lakes. I didn’t do it for exercise and I didn’t do it for work…I suppose I did it because it was the only thing I could think of to do that didn’t really involve any technology, of any kind, what so ever.

When you get down to it, there are few things as old fashioned as walking, the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other. Depending on your views on evolution—and I’m not going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole, thank you—walking is what humans have been doing at least as long as they’ve been doing anything else. And I don’t think it is a bad thing, every once in a while, to get back to doing at least one or two things completely on our own, without the help of all the modern conveniences we have surrounded ourselves with.

I’m not against technology by any means, and I usually take full advantage of gadgets when I can figure out how to use them. But I do worry about what happens when we get too used to these conveniences. Are we raising a generation who doesn’t know how to cook with anything but a microwave or write a paragraph without using spell-check?

I just think we need to be careful. It might not be a bad idea to try the “old” way every once in a while, even if only for nostalgia.

Write a letter. Talk a walk. Go crazy and bake a loaf of bread.

Remember what it was like before everything was done for you.

It’s actually kind of refreshing.