The path of least resistance rarely leads to embroidery time… or doggo time… or beach time. No. It leads to whining Karen time… and dudebro incel time

I was born a natural sprinter. I will now stop writing for a second so you can piss yourself laughing. Done? Good. When I started primary school, I was behind the entire class with writing. Yes, writing. I had to walk over yuuuge letters drawn on a carpet to learn which way they went, but damn, could I run. If you put me on a track, I did my best, and if I did my best, I won the race. I hated every minute of it. One day, at the tender age of 10, I realised I didn’t have to run fast. In fact, if I stopped running fast, they’d eject me from the team, so that’s exactly what I did.

You teach people how to treat you, and I’d been teaching my teachers to put me on a track. When I stopped doing that, I could spend sports days on the bleachers talking to friends while the team did stupid things like running fast. I also had far more hours for painting, and it was glorious.

It’s taken me 40 years to learn to apply that lesson to my adult life. I’ve finally figured it out, though. Life will reward you for anything in which you invest. I’d invested in running as a child, and when I grew up, I invested in needy people who refused to help themselves. “No” is an excellent word to learn, but when I began choosing my time and relationship investments, I ran into far fewer reasons to say “no” in the first place. I’ve stopped investing in strangers’ luxury problems, so now I have the time to invest in people and animals who actually need it.

It’s also left me with far more hours for doing embroidery. Yes, embroidery is more fun than running. Just be quiet.

You get out what you put in. The trouble is if you invest in the wrong things, you quickly end up with an unhappy life. The path of least resistance rarely leads to embroidery time… or doggo time… or beach time. No. It leads to whining Karen time… and dudebro incel time… and narcissistic boomer time.

Nobody wants a life full of Karens and dudebros, but they demand the most, so it's easy to invest in them the most. Pretty soon, my life was made up of all the things that made me miserable. I don’t do my best with those kinds of people anymore. I do my best with the ones I cherish instead.