There were many things I prepared myself for before moving to Los Angeles for the second time. (I almost chickened out.) Making a shortlist of neighborhoods I’d consider living in, bookmarking wish list activities, sketching out a budget (hint: every number is bigger except my salary, natch).

But nothing could prepare me again for the level of vigilance required to drive safely and efficiently here.

Now you may go, well, you should always be vigilant while driving. Of course. But going two miles in the main core of LA will have you rushing to put on your blinker so that you can change lanes because you see that cars are (legally) parked in the rightmost lane, then moving quickly to change back to the right lane once you approach a light because at most intersections, there’s a left turn yield on green that can cause traffic to back up. And then there’s avoiding potholes and the errant pedestrian–I get it, sometimes the nearest crosswalk is not so near and they try the Frogger approach. That’s just the tip of the drive-berg.

front half of a Waymo car
And now you’ve got Waymo cars to look out for too!

Of course, managing all this takes a lot of energy, and also a lot of self-control to not let things get to you, not to start stewing in a constant low grade of annoyance that hopefully doesn’t turn into road rage.

Stewing is a bad habit I’ve been fighting all my life and that got amplified my first time living in Los Angeles, ten years ago. While driving of course, completely new to the city, but also when I didn’t grasp something quickly at work, when I felt like an interaction didn’t go as well as hoped for, when when when. I would turn incidents over in my head an unnecessary amount. I craved a reason, even if it meant being hard on myself or other people. Looking back, I think I was young and feeling lost, and I wanted to control things where I could, even if it was by passing judgment on others or myself.

But I’ve learned that that’s not my place. In addition to a lot of self-directed learning, a few different stints of therapy and coaching — though I sought help for different specific issues — have helped me develop a better relationship with myself and with my thoughts, and hopefully in turn with other people. And this time in LA, I’m noticing that I am breaking old patterns. If someone cuts me off now, I only react by tapping the brake a bit to maintain a safe distance away from them, then I continue listening to my podcasts. I don’t take it personally.

And with people? Recently, when I got back to my apartment, another woman had just gotten back as well and held the lobby door open for me, but she looked less-than-pleased while doing so. We got in the elevator and rode it silently. When I exited on my floor, I could hear her rapidly pressing a button, ostensibly the one to close the doors.

A younger me would have stewed and wondered why she couldn’t be nicer, or what was it about me or what I did that triggered her desire to get away from me? Now I just wrote it off as: she probably had a long day, and she couldn’t wait to get back into her apartment.

I held these examples in my head just long enough to have context while journaling for myself and sharing about them here. I took stock instead of letting myself stew in bad feelings. And then I kept moving on.

One tidbit from the “3-2-1 Newsletter” by James Clear has helped me break my bad habit of stewing. In one of the recent editions — unfortunately I’m forgetting which one exactly — he refers to an idea that what’s really important is how quickly someone can restart. That goes for anything in life. Of course, it’s especially relevant to his excellent book Atomic Habits, in that if you break a habit once, you should aim to get back on it as soon as possible.

Here are a few practices that help me take stock and continue moving on each day in my second chance at this city. Some of these are straight from what I learned from mental health professionals and are good for mental or emotional health in general:

  • Name the emotion: When something unsettling happens, I don’t close off my emotions, even though that creates an illusion of safety, but actively try to name the one that I’m feeling. “Wow, that was surprising.” “Hm, disappointing.” Then I can figure out what to do next.
  • Lead with curiosity: I let myself briefly speculate about the reasons something turned out the way it did. It can help me tap into my empathy, and I know my mind will want to do it anyway, so better to get the thoughts out of my system.
  • Reframe with gratitude: There was a social media video trend where people suggested reframing life challenges. For example: “Traffic is a pain, but I’m grateful that I can take myself where I need to go.” It feels trite and can only go so far in some cases, but it does help put things into perspective most of the time.

Speaking of traffic, if you made it here, I’ll leave you with a unique license plate I saw the other day. BASDCEO. My guess is that it’s meant to be read as “based CEO”, which is a good… thing…?

A license plate on a blue car that reads "BASDCEO."