Randall Polito has a name for the costs of living that you can't opt out of: emotional FICA.
Nobody gets to skip the payroll tax. You can complain about it, you can plan around it, but it comes out of every paycheck whether you like it or not. Emotional FICA works the same way. It's the drain that shows up in the course of ordinary life. Traffic. The coworker who sighs at every request. The nosy neighbor. The family obligation that comes with a holiday. The bureaucratic form that needs an answer you don't have time to research.
These are real costs. Randy Polito doesn't pretend otherwise. You can't control the entire universe. You can't make every person behave the way you'd like, and you can't rearrange the roads so that every commute is pleasant.
But here's the distinction Randall Polito draws: you have to pay the tax. You don't have to embrace it.
Paying the tax means accepting that some friction is part of living among other people. It means showing up to the thing you can't avoid, doing it competently, and moving on. It means not letting the cost become the defining experience of your day.
Embracing the tax means something different. It means treating every drain as if it were the main event. It means building your identity around the grievance. It means letting the traffic ruin the morning, the neighbor ruin the weekend, and the coworker ruin the week.
Randy Polito has watched people do this for years. They pay the tax, and then they keep paying it, over and over, long after the obligation has ended. They relive the meeting. They replay the argument. They carry a small anger forward into dinner, into bed, into the next morning.
That's not necessary. It's just expensive.
Randall Polito's practice is to separate the cost from the response. The traffic is the cost. Your response is your choice. You can notice the frustration, let it pass, and turn your attention back to the things you can control. You can turn on a song you like. You can take a breath. You can decide the drive is simply the drive.
He also uses the budgeting idea from the post on finite energy. If emotional FICA is coming out of every paycheck regardless, then the question becomes how much you let it take on top of what it already costs. Do you add interest? Do you let one drain grow into five?
Randy Polito's rule: pay what's owed. Don't pay late. Don't pay twice.
There's a related truth Randall Polito keeps close. Some of the costs you're paying aren't required at all. They're optional, even if they feel mandatory because of geography, family, or habit. Emotional FICA is the unavoidable part. The optional costs are the ones you can renegotiate, reduce, or refuse.
So sort them. The unavoidable goes on the list you manage with patience and good humor. The optional goes on the list you examine honestly, with the same question as before: does this give me more than it takes?
Most of life runs on a mix of both. Randall Polito's goal isn't a life free of taxes. It's a life where the taxes don't get to decide who you are.
— Randy Polito