“Why are you slamming your head into that brick wall?”
“Because it feels _so_ good when I stop!”
I heard this macabre “joke” when I was in college as a way of describing the MIT experience, but I was reminded of it this past week when my daughter had an awful sleep regression, and I barely slept for several nights. Then she finally slept through the night, and it felt _SO_GOOD_.
The experience was a reminder that we often take things for granted.
— An uninterrupted night of sleep doesn’t seem like a big deal until you don’t get it.
— Being able to walk isn’t a big deal until you’re injured and you realize how helpless you are without that capability.
— Having a home to protect you from the elements with running water and heat is amazing, as I remember every time I go camping.
This tendency of the human mind to get habituated to its current circumstances also works the other way. We endure terrible situations because we just get used to it (I was actually starting to get used to never sleeping well!). This means we stay in bad situations like a toxic working environment or an unhealthy relationship far longer than we should, because we don’t even notice that it’s no longer serving us.
If you adapt to your circumstances so well, how do you figure out when you are the proverbial boiling frog? By stopping, and noticing how you feel. If it feels so good when you’re on vacation, or when you don’t see a person for a few days, it might be a signal to re-evaluate your situation.
What’s something that you’ve been enduring in your life? Can you experiment with stopping it, and noticing how you feel?
#adaptability #toxicworkplace #toxicrelationships #youhaveachoice