I just realized what a huge chunk of my speech and thought during the winter is monotonous complaining about the cold weather. This has been the case for a few years now at least. I mention it in practically every conversation, because the cold bothers me so much; because it lowers the quality of my life so noticeably when my body temperature feels low.

But why? The fact is that I have many reasons for wanting to live in parts of the world that also happen to have cold weather. I have no intention of moving to the tropics any time soon, and there are plenty of other plans and wishes that keep me up north. Besides, cold weather is beautiful in its own distinctive way, and I’ve always been strangely fascinated by northernness and northern places.

So what I’ve been doing is something that I really dislike—something that is summed up in the best definition of suffering that I’ve ever heard: burning energy on what can’t be changed. Rather than attacking the actual problem—my feeling uncomfortably cold—I’ve been gushing out vast quantities of negative energy, out into the world and other people’s lives, over the unchangeable fact that the cold places I’ve decided to live in are cold. Why?

It then hit me that the actual problem is easily solveable. I went on the internet, located the warmest wool base layer available, a very thick scarf, and huge wool socks, and purchased them; and you won’t hear a single complaint about the cold from me again.

It’s amazing how we can think we are observing ourselves so acutely and still have glaring blind spots.