Life tax vs. life tuition

On seeing challenges as opportunities, burdens as privileges--plus some exciting news!

Gracious reader,

Exciting news!

I’ve just found out from my publisher that my book, The Soul of Civility, is being released in the United Kingdom on August 5th.

If you are in the UK and would like to join the launch team, please write to me directly at ah@alexandraohudson.com.

(The Australia launch date is currently set for September 24th, too!)

“Even light blows, if they are many, can kill.”

It's easy to feel like life with others is merely death by a thousand paper cuts.

For example, on my way to Austin this week for a book talk, I was accosted by an overzealous gate attendant as I boarded my flight for carrying my book poster. I've been on over 100 flights with this poster, and it has never been a problem.

But this time, the gate attendant was adamant that I was not permitted this “third item” and that its irregular size made it impermissible for travel. FAA regulation, she chided.

When I asked if I could simply speak with the flight attendants actually operating my flight, she consented—and they welcomed me on board as they had a hundred times before, showing me exactly where my book poster could go.

Life can be grating. The aggravations of daily life, both great and small, can quickly wear us down and take their toll.

Giovanni Della Casa—the Italian Renaissance author of Il Galateo, one of my favorite civility books forgotten by history that I feature in my book, The Soul of Civility—put it well.

He wrote, “Even light blows, if they are many, can kill.”

Life Tax

I recently mused to my husband that we should embrace the concept of a “life tax,” a tariff—of time, energy, and even money—that we should simply resign ourselves to as inherent to living life with others.

A package arrives from Amazon. An item inside is broken, which leaks and damages all the other items in the package. Amazon says that an item arriving damaged and damaging all items it was shipped with is not covered under their return policy.

Life tax.

You get a manicure in a city where you don’t live. Every nail chips the same day, but you’re already at the airport. You call them and tell them. They say they’ll fix it if you come back—which isn’t possible since you don’t live there. But they won’t refund you.

Life tax.

A friend of mine once bought a car from a used car dealership. It was a lemon. “Caveat emptor,” they said, refusing to refund him, fix the problems, or otherwise make it right.

Life tax.

A family member of mine once leased a car through his bank—a car he loved and took excellent care of. Upon turning his car in, the bank charged him $3,500 for “undue wear and tear” on the leased car, entirely unjustly. He fought it for months, calling the dealership and talking to managers at the bank. He ultimately resigned himself to the injustice of it all, decided to forget about the money, and move on with his life.

Life tax.

I'm sure you can think of a million examples from your own life where an injustice happened, great or small, that you had to make a decision about: “Am I going to fight this, or let it go?”

I’m someone who doesn’t take injustice lightly. I often feel the temptation—no, the obligation—to rectify all injustice I see, great and small, whether they happen to me or others. But that’s simply not tenable. There’s not enough time in the day, and I don’t have the energy or ability to take on all the injustices I encounter.

I’ve found the concept of a “life tax” helpful, as it prepares me mentally for the reality that injustices will happen in life. Whether and when to do something about it is a decision that should be made on a case-by-case basis by each of us personally.

But often, the right thing to do is to take a deep breath and move on to more productive uses of our time and energy. This is often better than chasing after a lost hope of recouping “sunk costs”—a term economists use for losses that can never be regained.

The “life tax” is just the cost of doing things in the marketplace of life with others. You’ll take some hits. You win some, you lose some. You can’t win every battle or right every injustice.

“Life Tax”—or Life Tuition?

This concept of a "life tax,” as I’ve mentioned, has helped me condition myself to the quotidian struggles in our day-to-day existence with others that we don’t have control over and which are inevitable.

But I’ve recently been thinking about whether there is a way to reframe this.

Instead of just shrugging, gritting our teeth, and enduring the inevitable injustices in life with others, what if we embrace each of these kerfuffles as learning opportunities instead?

Instead of a “life tax,” what if we embrace them as “life tuition”—learnings and wisdom gained from the challenges we endure?

Like, what did this experience—this “expenditure”—teach you?

Was it worth that in lessons learned, or how can you make it worthwhile?

How can we reframe these losses of time, money, or emotional energy, and choose to see them as an investment in our growth, a learning opportunity that is worth the price of admission?

My hope is that choosing to see adverse circumstances—which are bound to happen in our coexistence with others—as opportunities to learn can help us approach them, and others, with more grace.

Questions for You to Consider:

What are some examples of a “life tax” that you’ve encountered? Share in the comments below.

How can that story of a “life tax” be reframed into “life tuition”? Where is the silver lining—the lesson learned, the growth—that exists there, that can help us redeem the situation in our minds and show more grace to others?

I can’t wait to hear from you. Thanks so much for being part of this community!

Notes from the Book Tour

It was wonderful speaking last night to a full house in downtown Austin! Thank you so much for the warm welcome to the ideas of The Soul of Civility and for the rigorous dialogue about how to flourish across our differences—a timeless question and arguably the most important question of our time.

Looking ahead:

• June 26 - Brookfield Academy’s Center for Mission & Academics, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

• July 10 - 12- Freedom Fest, Las Vegas, NV. Register here!

• July 13 - Willian F. Buckley Jr. Communicators Workshop, Arlington, VA Register here!

• August 6 - National Conference of State Legislatures, Louisville, KY

In the news:

• Wonderful conversation at Stanford University for Francis Fukuyama’s YouTube Show.

• Thank you to Utah Public Radio for hosting an hour-long, wide-ranging episode about the most important question of our day: how might we flourish across difference? Let me know your thoughts, and click here to listen.

• Thankful to discuss my book on the PBS show, which you can watch The Open Mind!

• The Action Institute, Acton Line Podcast- Seeking Civility: Important Principles for Divided Times. Listen here.

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!