“Make life more complicated.” Gretchen Rubin

“Make life more complicated. My urge is always to simplify. My impulse is to lighten the load. Then I would see people making their lives more complicated right at the very times when I would say:

“Why are you doing it now? That doesn’t make any sense at all. Then I realized it does make sense. Right when I have that feeling, why would someone do this, it makes no sense to me. That’s when you say to yourself it does make sense.

Why would someone do something. It does make sense to them. It’s a way to crowd out negative preoccupations and concerns. I have all of this tough stuff on my plate, let me bring more joy into my less and less room to feel sad.

“You have so much bandwidth in your day. If you have empty bandwidth, something’s going to fill into it. You’re going to worry, there’s only so much you can do about it.

“This is something fun. What works is something where you have a lot of control, immediate benefits, takes up mental space with tasks and errands, and something you find fun.”

Source: Happer with Gretchen Rubin: Podcast 189: Make Life More Complicated, the Challenge of the (Non) Quiet Car, and a Question about Hotels.