Was it OK That I Hated My Driveway?

Unique Perspectives: Was it OK That I Hated My Driveway?

By Kim Stevens

I  hated my driveway.

Seriously. 

I completely loathed the thing.

This was about five or six years ago. I had just purchased a home – my dream home at the time – and yet, I couldn’t stand that the driveway on the property wasn’t paved. 

Whenever there was rain or a snowstorm, the driveway would become incredibly slushy or muddy, and navigating through the muck reminded me with every sloshy step I took just how much I detested that atrocious stretch of unpaved road. 

But there was a real problem with hating my driveway: If I hated my driveway, did that mean I also hated my home? How could I possibly be grateful for the entirety of a beautiful house I’d purchased if I felt deep-seated antagonism towards any part of it?

Then a friend said to me: “Kim, it’s OK. You can hate your driveway and love your home.”

Aha. 

Before those words, gratitude was a zero-sum game. Either I felt grateful for everything about my house or I didn’t feel grateful for it at all. Now, I had a nuanced perspective on gratitude.

So I told myself, “You know what? I do love my home and I also don’t like my driveway.” 

Instantly, I felt better. Instead of being anxious about having mixed emotions, I approached the thought with gentleness, recognizing that gratitude can rise like the sun and fall like the rain. Sure, maybe my home with the unpaved driveway wasn’t totally perfect but now, I was perfectly OK with that.