Let me tell you about the time I lived with a raccoon.
Not officially, of course. I didn’t sign a lease with one or agree to split utilities, though judging by the amount of peanut butter it consumed, it really should’ve chipped in. The raccoon, let’s call him Clive, lived in the crawl space beneath my first apartment. I knew he was there. I heard the scratching, the weird little trills, the occasional thud that sounded suspiciously like he was rearranging furniture. And yet, for nearly eight months, I did nothing.
Each night, I would fall asleep to the pitter-patter of tiny claws and think, “Well, that’s just how things are.” I even began to imagine he had hobbies. Jazz clarinet. Scrapbooking. Something nocturnal, obviously.
My neighbor, who had the moral clarity of a hummingbird on espresso, said to me one day, “Why don’t you just call animal control?” And I nodded solemnly, as though this was an epiphany I had never once considered, then returned to my apartment, lay on the couch, and turned the TV volume up to drown out what I suspected was Clive hosting a poker night.
Here’s the thing: I wasn’t helpless. I was complicit.
This is what I’ve come to believe: if you’re not changing it, you’re choosing it. Which is incredibly annoying, because it means I have to stop blaming my parents, my fifth-grade math teacher, and that barista who always spells my name “Ribber.”
Most of us have things in our lives we claim to merely “put up with,” like back pain, clutter, jobs that nibble at our souls like guilt-driven hamsters. We sigh and call it adulthood, or fate, or, if we’re particularly self-pitying, “my truth.” But unless you are, at this very moment, being held hostage by a bear or trapped beneath a piano, there’s a fair chance you have more say in your life than you pretend to.
And still, we sit.
Because change is terrifying. It smells like sweat and paperwork. It threatens our very favorite thing: the known. Even if the known is a raccoon throwing dice in your floorboards.
Now, I’m not suggesting we can all upend our lives like some HGTV demolition montage. I once tried to “change everything” in a single weekend and ended up sobbing into a drawer full of expired soy sauce packets. But I am suggesting that when we do nothing; when we let the job fester, or the relationship drag, or the dream sit like a yogurt in the back of the fridge, we’re not just enduring. We’re electing.
By doing nothing, we’re saying, “Yes, please. More of this.”
And then we wonder why the same things keep happening.
Sometimes, people ask, “Why do I always end up in the same kind of relationship?” And I want to say, “Because when red flags go up, you salute them.” We cling to what we know. We convince ourselves it’s easier to accept the mess than to mop it up.
But that’s like refusing to clean your kitchen because you’re “just not a sponge person.”
I don’t mean to sound harsh. I’ve been every version of stuck there is. Emotionally constipated, logistically paralyzed, existentially lounging in a mental bathrobe eating cereal for dinner. But somewhere in the middle of all that came a strange realization: I had become very good at adapting to things that were bad for me. Almost impressively good. Like the survival version of a jazz musician; improvising my way through dysfunction and calling it character.
So now, when something’s wrong, I try to ask myself, “Am I changing it? Or am I choosing it?”
It’s not always comfortable. But it’s clarifying.
Last year, I finally got rid of the friend who made me feel like I was auditioning for my own life. I changed a job that left me fantasizing about minor fender benders just for the excuse to not show up. I started flossing. (Okay, that one hasn’t lasted, but I did buy floss, which is a first step.)
None of this made me happier overnight. But it gave me a new sense of agency. Which, as it turns out, is just a fancy word for finally being the raccoon evicter and not the raccoon roommate.
So, if there’s a Clive in your crawl space, literal or metaphorical, maybe today’s the day you stop telling yourself he’s part of the charm. Maybe it’s time to pick up the phone, call animal control, and reclaim your house. Or at least your peanut butter.
Because as long as we’re not changing it, we are, however sheepishly, choosing it. And honestly, haven’t we all had enough raccoons?
Join us in making the world a better place – you’ll be glad that you did. Cheers friends.