Carpool Breakdown!

Yesterday Emma had to help out covering another family whose turn it was to drive to Lismore.

Em wanted them to drive the 10 minutes between our house and theirs and come and pick their child up.

The other family said, “it’s just another 10 minutes, can’t you do it?”

Except for it is a round trip 90 minutes to Lismore already, and while it might be 10 minutes to them but it's another 10 back to a total driving time of 110 minutes for her.

The family wrote back that they would have to interrupt their dinner to come and pick up their child.

At this point, Em lost it and said we are out of the carpool.

Not only did they fail to take their Friday to drive to Lismore, but then complaining that their dinner was being interrupted to come and pick up their own child was too much.

I agreed 100%.

We decided it was critical to cut ties and run.

It might mean we are now driving 3 times a week to Lismore, but that is little cost compared to being around such toxic values.

The principle here is that if people are disrespectful, ungrateful and rude, then it is necessary to reassess exactly what value, if any, that the relationship is providing.

Ie. there must be one amazing payoff to justify staying in contact.

In this case, there was not.

Having to drive to Lismore a couple more times a week is definitely worth excluding these people from our reality.

It may seem harsh but to continue risks contamination of my family with their values, and I cannot allow that to happen.

If you are sitting your FRACGP exams, you may face similar seemingly harsh decisions.

You must weigh up the cost of continuing some behaviours that might have been ok when you were not studying.

But now with the added requirements of the study, you must exclude them and continue to hold a strict boundary against them.

Possibilities include Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Instagram as well as toxic people.

If this is part of the challenge you face in your GP exam preparation, then I invite you to check out https://www.graduatemedicine.com/gpea to continue this conversation further.

If you are not, then be aware of changing conditions that force you to reassess exactly what a relationship is providing or not providing to you.

And if it no longer works… you know what you must do!