“If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.” ― Robert Fulghum
Ah, change. That’s practically a four-letter word around these parts. I chuckle a little when folks who’ve been here a year or two go on tirades about never changing anything because they like it just the way it is. They forget that they changed the town when they moved in.
Change is inevitable. It’s part of the cycle of life and there’s no escaping it. Whether it’s a change of season, weather, neighbors, a remodeling project, or just the byproduct of mortality, we are all in a constant state of flux. And “we hates it,” in Gollum speak.
This week’s news that Watt’s Ranch Market has been sold to new owners, coupled with adjustments that will have to be made for picking up mail while the 60-year-old post office building undergoes asbestos abatement puts two of our very familiar, very comfortable, very habitual patterns in a state of change. Change is inconvenient. It upsets our routine, and we very much dislike having our routines interrupted.
From a 50,000 foot view, these are minor inconveniences. So the grocery store will have new owners… at least we will still have a grocery store in town. Not every small town does anymore. And so what if we have to change our post office habits for a couple months? It’s far from the end of the world as we know it.
I think we’re all cognizant of that fact, yet we still fall into the trap of being outraged, aggravated, irritated and personally offended by the slightest inconvenience that comes our way.
Oh, you needed to run to the store for something and they closed early because they’re short-staffed or someone got sick. Quelle horreur!
A healthy response is not to go on a hate-filled rant about how horrible the store and its staff are on social media. Those kinds of reactions say far more about the quality of the person ranting than whatever situation has inconvenienced them today. And I guarantee they’ll be inconvenienced by something else — real or imagined — tomorow. What a sad way to exist.
By definition, an inconvenience is “trouble or difficulty caused to one’s personal requirements or comfort.” Our knee-jerk (or maybe just “jerk”) reaction to inconvenience is to complain. Loudly. Fervently. In ALL CAPS or with the flip of a middle finger. And it doesn’t do any good. The inconvenience is still there. Whatever is changing is still happening. We can whine about the heat all summer, and the heat will still be there. (Someone remind me I said that when I’m having a fit about being cold this winter.)
As Fulghum, author of the popular book “All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” explained, there really is a difference between legitimate problems and inconveniences. Knowing the difference will help us respond appropriately.
If it’s really a problem, what steps can we take to fix it? If it’s an inconvenience, what steps can we take to adjust ourselves?
