There is a theory that only around two percent of people will choose the stairs when an escalator or lift is available. Popularised by author Michael Easter, the statistic has become shorthand for something much larger than cardiovascular health.
After all, almost all of us understand that climbing the stairs is the healthier choice. Yet, presented with a faster and easier alternative, most of us instinctively choose convenience.
The staircase isn’t really the point. It simply reveals a question that feels increasingly difficult to ignore. In a world meticulously designed to remove friction from everyday life, what happens when we stop encountering the small moments of effort that once quietly shaped our bodies, our attention and even our sense of purpose?
LIVING WELL? A LONG STANDING QUESTION
For generations, progress has been measured by our ability to make life easier. Washing machines replaced hours spent over a basin. Google Maps meant we no longer had to memorise directions. Robot vacuum cleaners tidy our homes while we answer emails, and increasingly, artificial intelligence is beginning to write, organise and think alongside us.
Every innovation solves a genuine problem. Yet taken together, they reveal a cultural shift that extends far beyond convenience. Ease has become our default setting.
A WORLD WITHOUT FRICTION
There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with making life easier. Few of us are yearning to return to unnecessary labour or inefficiency. The more interesting question is what we choose to do with the time, energy and mental space these technologies promise to give back.
Convenience removes effort, but it doesn’t automatically replace it with meaning. Perhaps that’s because not all friction was ever meant to disappear. Some forms simply slowed us down. Others quietly kept us engaged.
Walking to the shop instead of driving. Cooking instead of ordering. Reading a novel instead of endlessly refreshing a feed. They ask something of us, but in return, they ask us to be present.
Without realising it, we’ve become remarkably good at engineering those moments out of everyday life.
MORE TIME DOESN’T EQUAL MORE FULFILMENT
The promise behind convenience has always been the same: save time, reduce effort, live better. Yet the relationship between free time and happiness is more complicated than it first appears.
We scroll through endless feeds in search of stimulation, even as a film, a book or a conversation often leaves us feeling far more fulfilled. We order dinner in minutes, then wonder why our evenings still feel strangely empty. We save time wherever we can, only to discover that having more of it doesn’t necessarily tell us how to spend it.
Research has found that excessive discretionary time can diminish wellbeing almost as readily as having too little. Purpose, rather than leisure alone, appears to be what gives free time its value. Left entirely unstructured, our minds have a habit of filling the silence themselves – often with rumination, comparison and endless what-if scenarios.
Perhaps the problem was never a lack of time. Perhaps it was assuming that time alone could provide meaning.
WHY WE KEEP CHOOSING DIFFICULT THINGS
If convenience were the ultimate goal, our leisure habits would look very different.
Instead, we voluntarily seek out experiences that demand something from us. We train for marathons, spend hours learning instruments, join pottery classes, hike mountains, read long novels and practise Pilates before work. None of these pursuits are easy. Yet they consistently rank among the experiences people describe as the most rewarding.
The paradox is striking. Humans don’t seem to crave difficulty for its own sake. We crave participation. We want to feel absorbed by something that requires our attention, our movement or our curiosity. The satisfaction rarely comes from avoiding effort altogether. More often, it comes from choosing the effort that feels worthwhile.
That may be why the staircase resonates so deeply. It represents one of dozens of tiny decisions we make each day between passive convenience and active participation.
THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL EASE
That distinction feels even more relevant as artificial intelligence becomes part of everyday life.
Previous generations used technology to reduce physical labour. Ours is beginning to reduce cognitive labour too. Drafting emails, planning holidays, summarising meetings and generating ideas can now happen in seconds. These tools are extraordinary, and they will undoubtedly continue to reshape the way we work and live.
The real question isn’t what AI can do for us. It’s what we still choose to do ourselves.
Progress has always been about removing unnecessary obstacles. Yet there is a difference between eliminating meaningless friction and eliminating meaningful effort. One gives us more freedom. The other risks distancing us from the very experiences that make us feel engaged, capable and present.
CHOOSING THE STAIRS
Seen through that lens, choosing the stairs stops being a health tip and becomes something closer to a philosophy. It is one of countless moments each day where we can either outsource a little more of our physical and mental engagement or remain active participants in our own lives.
This isn’t an argument against convenience. Nor is it a call to romanticise hardship. The goal has never been to make life unnecessarily difficult.
Rather, it’s an invitation to think differently about the kinds of effort we choose to keep.
Because somewhere between the lift and the staircase, the takeaway and the home-cooked meal, the algorithm and the recommendation from a friend, convenience quietly stopped being just a tool and started becoming a philosophy.
The future will almost certainly become easier. The more interesting question is whether we can remain the kind of people who still choose the forms of effort that connect us to ourselves. Not because they’re the fastest route from A to B, but because they remind us that living well has never been about eliminating every obstacle.
Sometimes, it’s about recognising that the smallest moments of friction were never standing in the way of life. Instead, living well may always require us to embrace a little friction.
