At 9am, I scored parking at a metered spot half a block from my destination. It was a bit far compared to where I parked the last time I was there, but a decent spot, nonetheless. I put 30 minutes in the meter and walked over to the office building.
When I walked through the door, I was greeted by a sign “Closed for department meeting until 10am.” I had an appointment somewhere else at 10am so I would have to come back. I walked back to my car and thought, what a worthless parking spot.
After my appointment, I returned to the office building and circled the block four times trying to find a spot. I ended up parking on a side street, the only available spot I could find for a few blocks. I was glad I finally found a spot but bummed it was so far. It made my 9am spot take on rockstar status.
But as I went to feed the meter, I got excited because there were 40 minutes left in there. Suddenly, this parking spot was great. Then, as someone pulled up and asked if I was leaving, the spot upgraded to awesome.
The parking spots themselves didn’t change, but in my mind they sure did. We spend so much time rating things (like parking spots) that we forget how arbitrary and impermanent our judgments are. If we take these judgments too seriously, we can create harmful consequences for ourselves down the road.
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