As I’ve written in a previous post, I believe that sometimes the best option is not the most convenient one. I’m definitely not the first one to come to this conclusion; the IndieWeb is full of thought-provoking posts dealing with friction and its value to our life (some examples that I enjoyed reading: A Fan of Friction, Friction is a Feature, On the importance of friction - apologies to many others not linked here).

A common idea about inconvenience/friction is that this is where you develop skills, character and resilience. One area where this is almost obvious to anyone, not just to freaks like us who tend to overthink everything, is health and fitness. The whole point in physical exercise is doing things that are hard and in some sense ‘inconvenient’ in order to gain something. Similarly, changing your diet is never convenient, but many people choose to do that. The first question I’m asking myself is why something which seems so obvious in those domains is so unintuitive in others.

Is it that in the case of physical inconvenience we are more aware of the systematic relation between what we do and what happens to our bodies? If so, is it about the awareness or about how big and important the possible gains/losses are? Or is there another reason why we respond differently to the idea of adding inconvenience in different domains?

And then, there’s also the question of how much: If a person chooses to wear weights on their wrists or ankles to make ordinary movement more challenging, they probably look for something which is heavy enough to have an effect, but not too heavy. Similarly, even the most hard-core fan of intentional inconvenience probably won’t follow the principle of ‘Let’s make our lives as inconvenient as possible all the time’. How do decide then, in different domains, what’s enough inconvenience but not too much?

In order to better understand this, as well as to help myself make better choices of where, when and how to apply inconvenience to my life, I’m going to write a series of posts about ways in which I’m intentionally choosing things that are hard or inconvenient. What’s relevant here is places where I’m making a choice; there are many things in life that are inconvenient but we don’t choose them, and these are not what I’m talking about. So for instance something like having your car break down (very inconvenient but not something you choose) is not what I have in mind; but maybe opting to stick with an inexpensive old car, which might break down - that could be an instance of the kind of intentional inconvenience I have in mind; but that is only under the assumption that you’re really making this choice (e.g., that you can afford a more reliable car but choose not to); and that you make the choice with the understanding that you might experience inconvenience, not because you’re just a stubborn fool who refuses to see what you don’t want to see.

My goal is not just to notice areas of intentional inconvenience in my life - actual or potential - but also to ask meaningful questions about these choices:

  • What do I gain, or hope to gain?
  • What is the ‘price’ that I pay?
  • What are the alternatives?
  • How do I balance the degree of inconvenience?
  • Am I really making a conscious choice, or just acting on autopilot or following the herd?

So, this post is just an intro to what, I hope, would become an interesting series of posts.