Why Am I Still In Economy..?

That question stayed with me.

Why am I still in economy?

Because take away the aircraft and it becomes a surprisingly good question about life.

We can spend years working towards more.

More responsibility.

More money.

More success.

More security.

And yet still behave as though our own comfort, time and energy should come last.

We tolerate things because we've always tolerated them.

Stay available because we've always been available.

Keep saying yes because saying no feels somehow unreasonable.

Remain in situations we've quietly outgrown because nothing is sufficiently wrong to justify changing them.

And that's when I started thinking about the idea of an economy life.

Not a less expensive life.

A life in which you've somehow become accustomed to giving yourself the worst seat.

There are costs in life that never appear on a bank statement.

Time.

Energy.

Peace.

Freedom.

Attention.

The emotional cost of relationships that take far more than they give.

The physical cost of continually pushing through exhaustion.

The cost of staying somewhere because leaving feels inconvenient.

The cost of constantly making yourself smaller so everyone else remains comfortable.

And perhaps one of the stranger things about getting older is realising how expensive some of those bargains actually were.

Things I once considered normal, I now question.

Things I once tolerated, I notice.

Things I once thought I had to earn, I no longer believe require permission.

Not because I've become more demanding.

Because I've become much more aware of what I'm paying with.

And this is where the metaphor could become slightly ridiculous.

Because I'm not suggesting the answer to midlife fulfilment is a lie-flat bed and unlimited Laurent-Perrier.

Lovely though that may be.

Business class isn't interesting because the cutlery is better.

It's interesting because space has value.

Rest has value.

Comfort has value.

Being treated well has value.

And increasingly, I think the same applies to how we construct our lives.

What gets your best energy?

Who gets your time?

Where are you constantly compromising?

What are you continuing to pay for with your wellbeing simply because you've become accustomed to the price?

Those questions interest me far more now than whether a life looks successful from the outside.

For years we're taught that the upgrade comes later.

After the promotion.

After the children are older.

After the mortgage.

After we've saved enough.

After we've proved ourselves.

After everybody else is sorted.

Then, presumably, somebody appears with a clipboard, taps us on the shoulder and announces:

Congratulations. It's finally your turn.

Except nobody is coming.

That's perhaps the part we eventually have to understand.

There isn't a gate agent for your life.

Nobody else is going to decide you've worked hard enough to want more space.

Or more freedom.

Or better relationships.

Or work that doesn't consume you.

Or simply a Tuesday afternoon that belongs entirely to you.

At some point, you have to decide what has become too expensive.

Her question was about an airline seat.

But I've thought about it many times since.

Because there are probably places in all our lives where we're still sitting in economy simply because we haven't stopped to question the booking.

So perhaps the question isn't:

Have I earned more?

Maybe it's simply:

Why am I still accepting less?

And if the answer is because you hadn't realised there was another option...

Perhaps that's worth noticing.

Because the real upgrade was never the plane.