I grew up in the outskirts of nowhere. My parents live on a hill in the woods in Central New York, relatively tucked away from civilization.
If I wanted to go to a friend’s house growing up, my mom drove me 30 minutes into town. If I had to get my braces tightened, we drove 40 minutes into a different town to see the orthodontist (just typing that makes me cringe, both because braces were terrible and because I get motion sickness easily and the roads to that particular town were unreasonably windy.) If we wanted to go shopping and eat a fancy dinner at Red Lobster or Olive Garden, we drove two hours to Albany. If I had ballet class or a violin lesson or any of a huge number of extracurricular activities, we packed snacks, we loaded into the car, and we drove at least 25 minutes, often more like 40, to get there.
All of those numbers and sentences to say this: I am used to driving a while to get to anything worth going to.
A friend recently bribed me to drive the 40 minutes to her house by offering to make me dinner. I thought that was funny, because I would have driven there and made her dinner. I didn’t require the bribery. But I realized that some people do.
I am still used to drive time being a requirement. Which means that I do not mind in the slightest hopping in my car to drive 40 minutes to my friend’s house for dinner. Would it be more convenient to pop over a couple blocks? Yes. Might that change how often I stop by? Also yes, to a certain extent. But don’t distract me, I’m trying to make a point.
See, I am used to there being some inconvenience involved in getting where I want to go.
It might bother me if I’m overly tired or having a rough day, but then again birds singing and children laughing can bother me if I’m overly tired or having a rough day.
This realization that I am comfortable with the inconvenience, while others are not, has caused me to wonder: what inconvenience or discomfort am I avoiding because I’m just not used to it?
Do I avoid small talk not because I find it distasteful but because I am not used to it? Do I numb my emotions because I don’t like the discomfort of feeling them? What do I have to be bribed to do (or bribe myself to do) simply because I’m not used to it?
What inconveniences or discomforts are you used to? And which ones do you avoid?
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