Scales

AMA - Finding comfort in the familiar things in life and having new adventures - which way do you lean?

Growing up as I did, where my family moved frequently and I was always changing schools, left me with a craving for stability and, well, sameness as an adult. I get a good deal of comfort out of living in the same house for decades now. I was glad to keep the same job in the same building for 20 years before retiring. On the other hand, traveling and seeing new things is a special treat. My favorite part of my months-long honeymoon was sleeping in a different place every night. I like both things.

In my job, most people are very unenthusiastic about having their computer updated, or god forbid, being issued a new one. When it comes to technology, the average person definitely prefers the familiar and comfortable over anything else. Not me. I'm always ready for new features, bug fixes, and extra security. Of course, since it's my profession, I'm more confident that I can fix any problems that pop up. Most of my career has been spent in education, where you would think people would be all about learning something new and expanding their horizons. You would be wrong if you thought that. Our ongoing controversy at work is around asking users to change the wireless network they use. That's it. Just select a different one from the list of what is available, type in your user name and password, and move on. Do I need to tell you how many meetings and conversations have already happened around this?

Lots of decisions come down to something familiar vs. something new. Take going out to eat, for instance. Wonder Woman and I have a handful of tried-and-true locally owned restaurants which we frequent. When I see a new place featured in the newspaper, I immediately think of checking it out if it looks like something we'd fancy. We like international cuisine and we need gluten-free options. Yet, when it's the end of a long work day and we've decided that cooking is too much of a hassle, we almost always head to one of the places where we've been 100 times before. It's not called comfort food for nothing.

I drive a 2005 Toyota Camry. It is a twenty-year-old hand-me-down from my mother, who literally drove it to church on Sundays. It has well over 200,000 miles. The paint is stained from being parked under an oak tree, and there are various scrapes and dents on every side of it. I've put exactly zero thought into getting a replacement for it. I haven't had a car payment since the Bush administration, and that thought horrifies me. I only drive it a couple of times a week to work and back anyway. Wonder Woman has a new Subaru Outback with all the bells and whistles, Apple Car Play, heated steering wheel, automatically adjusting mirrors and seats, a backup camera, the whole deal. I love to drive it and do so every chance I get. It is indeed a balancing act.

There are a few areas where I lean one way or another. I'm not much on rewatching movies or TV shows if I have already seen them, but I will re-read a book without hesitation. On my computer, I've used some of the same apps for many, many years, such as PathFinder (20 years), Evernote(15 years), and Launchbar(17 years) - all of which I ditched last year for replacements that I am now quite happy with. For other things, like email, I'm still using the same thing, the Gmail web interface that I have used since 2005.

They say that without newness, memories don't get created, and life just sort of blends into a big blob. I believe that, so I do seek out new adventures. But I also relish in the comfort of the familiar. I expect most people are the same in that regard.

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