Bug or feature?

This week, Jeff has been arguing that the commute to my new internship is too long and unpleasant, and that I should try to get a different internship closer to home. Today, I spent my commute trying to win the argument. I got to see the sunrise! I had a nice jar of tea on the bus! I got a lot of reading done! Look, there's goldenrod blooming in the marsh beside the highway! It's really a nice commute.

A similar thing happened when he and I got engaged. My parents had big misgivings about the match, and I was determined to prove them wrong. At first I worried that I was being childishly perverse, blindly reacting against them. But when I realized that my rebellion was manifesting as a determination to be happy in my marriage, I stopped worrying.

...which makes me wonder if someone could game my system. If I'm despondent about something, maybe the answer is to provoke me into enjoying it.