That is what Adam Smith said ensures that everyone has their needs met.
Except he forgot that the invisible hand putting his meals on the table was his mum.
The invisible hand for many lazy modern life men is the delivery guy.
We probably don't think about them much, except if, like me, you live five steps up the ground floor and work from home.
I'm the parcel station in my house of maybe 16 parties.
The Hermes guy once asked for my Instagram. I didn't give it to him. After all, he already knew where I live, and if he wanted to deepen our relationship, he could have written a postcard. I congratulated him when he told me about his career progression to become a social worker.
And that was that. The new Hermes guy isn't very talkative, but it also seems the neighbors have moved on to a different delivery service. Mainly: DHL.
Yesterday I had to pick up a parcel from the post station and guess who was there too: the local DHL guy. He remembered the IKEA parcel delivered to my door (the laptop desk from the last post) and asked if it had gone alright, assembling it. Then he moved on to jokingly scold his co-workers who'd made me go to the post the second he went on holiday for a week.
It was quite amazing. The fact he remembered, but even more so, that he always is cheerful despite having a terribly physically demanding job.
I bet they do not get a whole lot of gratitude, either. Many might not even register their existence. Yet they make our comfortable lives possible.
There must be many such people we can learn a lot from.
I'll not complain again about how hard my job is anytime soon. It isn't. I literally just type shit, not run from house to house delivering, in part, very heavy parcels.
Plus, I think twice about what I actually have to order and what I can just go and carry myself using public transport or a bike.
Having to carry stuff to your door might even increase attachment to them. I am fondly attached to the rug I carried for 30 min and took the train with. Felt very accomplished.