On Adventures and Inconveniences

I don't watch The Hills (I swear!), but I read a review of The Hills in The New Yorker. I know that sounds like a joke, but it's absolutely true. Anyway, I understand there was a character who worked at a magazine in L.A. and was offered the opportunity to spend 6 months at the magazine's Paris office. She declined (probably because she would have been off the show, I suppose). Her boss responded, "You'll always be known as the girl who turned down Paris."


When I read that, I thought of myself, of course. Having the opportunity to spend 6 months in Paris and to work on an interesting matter was a no-brainer. That said, there have been inconveniences. G.K. Chesterton wrote that an inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. When you look at it that way, then my original shoebox of an apartment was an adventure. The fact that my washing machine still doesn't work in my new apartment is an adventure. Obtaining a French visa is an adventure. Living in a place where you arrive without speaking the language and knowing practically no one is an adventure. Under those circumstances, buying groceries started out as an adventure. Basically, every day is an adventure.


Generally speaking, we are better off when we can maximize the number of our choices. This, after all, is one way of describing the difference between rich and poor: the rich have more choices and do what they can; the poor have few choices and accept what they have to. That said, we live in a world where we can be given a lot of choices that don't matter too much: 500 satellite TV channels; 15 fast-food restaurants in 2 blocks, etc. Being here, in a way, lessened my choices -- given my limited language skills and lack of contacts, there were only so many things I could do. That said, the choices I made at home ended up being so familiar and routine, and the choices I've made here have, by necessity, been radically different. At my worst, I can be someone who waits for life to happen to me. This experience forced me outside of my comfort zone, and for that adventure, I am grateful.