The sentence "if you can't avoid it, enjoy it!" was the cheery conclusion of a 5th grader's essay that I was grading today. I liked the philosophical sentiment of it, though I also thought it has an unspoken corollary: "if you CAN avoid it, then, by all means, do so." Some things in life are unavoidable, and we should take those things with calm, equanimity, and even try to enjoy them. But other things in life are clearly avoidable, yet all too often, we just keep putting up with them, tolerating them, letting them annoy us, when it would be all too easy to walk away from these things, or push them out of our way and move on. Sometimes I think we possess an excessive loyalty to the status quo, whatever it is.
Which brings me back to the "why" of my current adventure – vis-a-vis my ruminations about whether to renew my contract or not. Clearly, because of the option to renew, I am in an "avoidable" situation, as far as continuing my experience here. So the question is, do I want to continue? Are the benefits I'm deriving greater than the annoyances I'm suffering? What's the calculus of my life, so to speak?