Sick of all the stop signs plaguing St. Charles Avenue? Worried The Underground won’t be open for another month? Long lines in the C-Store and Orleans Room driving you crazy? Then you must be suffering from convenience. And you know what? It kills.

“Convenience Kills.” This phrase should resonate with students from Dr. Ben Wren’s Zen I course; but like most of what is learned at Loyola, it goes beyond the classroom. Convenience kills an open and questioning mind, convenience kills ambition and drive and convenience halts growth and change. All of which are vital to Loyola and to life itself.

I don’t aim to rid the world of Quik-E-Marts and online shopping, but when we become absorbed in the conveniences of our society life can easily become monotonous, uninspiring and more importantly, lacking of appreciation.

Living in New Orleans is often overlooked as a gift simply because we are here day after day. But it should be greatly appreciated whether you’re born and raised in New Orleans or just passing through. Yet it’s too easy to ignore something so simple as long as The Doughbowl is open.

Or how about being a student at Loyola? Unfortunately this past semester a lot of students got the chance to compare colleges, but considering the fact that more than 90 percent of us are back means that some people have realized the great environment we were given. But it won’t take long for convenience to deaden the enthusiasm we returned with if we let it.

The conveniences that are offered in life shouldn’t manifest themselves in our thought processes and relationships. There needs to be a difference in how we get our sandwiches and how we look at our environment. To be killed by convenience is essentially to be taking life and aspects of it for granted, thus sacrificing the very thing that makes life so interesting – the idea that what is here now may not be here later – and that includes your time, how you spend it and who you spend it with.

So contrary to popular belief, convenience stores aren’t going to start rearing after you with a pick axe, but if we let ideas of instant coffee and drive-thrus influence our minds to start thinking in terms of instant friends and learn-thrus, then we are going to be in for a big shock when our lives have flashed by and all we have are Facebook.com profiles to show for it.

So maintain the appreciation you have for your friends, family and living in such an awesome city, because if a city with a spirit that even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita couldn’t dampen can begin to pick itself up and move on, then I don’t mind the extra stop and go action up and down St. Charles Avenue.

Brandon Mauldin is a philosophy major from Detroit.