Example: I grew up in a large joint family. In the family kitchen, everyone had a chore. Often around 20-40 mts time investment each benefited 12 people’s meals. Cooking for myself or even two people is at least one hour. My time is better spent doing other things. I would rather hire a cook.
Otoh, it’s also a timesaver and money saver if we could have a hired a cook to feed 12 people, but the family had seniors, kids, teens and working adults and stay at home moms. It was also a way for our grandmother to teach us family recipes and chores. That was invaluable. We also learnt time management, budgeting and cooking informally. Those are life lessons. Priceless. Now this..As an adult in a nuclear family, it’s a drain on my time. And time is money too. Ditto with driving.
Example: it costs $6.99 for A2 milk from Whole Foods delivered free. $5 tip for $40 worth of deliveries. The cheapest A2 milk in a store is 9.99/three cartons at Costco. That’s one hour shopping+driving plus gas. And I can’t buy in small quantities. I can’t manage groceries on a week to week basis. Net net, the seemingly more expensive option is the cheapest one.
Not including the carbon footprint benefit. One person delivering to ten homes on a route is better than 10 people driving to different stores to pick up milk. Time. The arrow of time goes in only one direction. Can’t reverse time and hence it has become more valuable. Take communal time and communal value for money too.
If I were a mom dropping off my kids at two different schools, that time shopping and driving for milk runs is better spent as quality time with my kids. Even if it’s pure comfort factor. Kicking back and watching a movie is totally worth the money. It’s hedonism at a very small price. Discomfort is not a virtue nor is it a teachable moment.
There is a quality I’d like to call ‘slack’. It’s the stress adjustment factor. If your inner space is taut and always stretched end to end, it would snap. Makes you inflexible. Frayed. No ‘give’ to personality. That has a huge impact..esp with relationships even if it’s with yourself. Slack makes it better. Let’s you live longer and better without snapping. Avoiding discomfort is a survival skill.
Having said that, discomfort is essential to children. It is an experience and a teachable skill. Interestingly, I have been observing that we pad our younger generation’s life and make them soft by catering to their every need while parents fray and become brittle. When the kids grow up, they are never going to understand ‘discomfort’ and when it becomes unavoidable (as it goes in life) and unable to adjust, they are going to break down.
Adults need to embrace slack and pass on discomfort to the next generation. They have rightly been dubbed entitled. And we are no longer children and our time in discomfort training camp is over.
