I almost immediately thought of this koan.

Responding to your 7-hours-driving-to-museum example, I often drive my car to Ultimate tournaments. It takes about 10 hours both ways, more than playing time, but I try to enjoy every minute of it. It's a kind of meditation. I find that if the way takes longer, I'm more focused at the end and I play better.

Very good article. One thing I'd like to see covered are conditions that are "treatable" with good lifestyle choices, but whose burden is so onerous that no one would consider them acceptable. Let's say you have a genetic condition which causes you to gain much more weight (5x, 10x - the number is up to the reader) than a comparable non-affected person. So much that the only way you can prevent yourself from becoming obese is to strenuously exercise 8 hours a day. If a person chooses not to do this, are they really making a "bad" choice? Is it still their fault? In this scenario, 1/3 of your day/life has become about treating this condition. I doubt too many people would honestly choose to do the "virtuous" thing in this situation.

Second thing I'd like covered: things that were inflicted on you without your consent. How much blame can you take for, let's say, your poor job prospects if your parents beat you severely every day (giving you slight brain damage of some kind, but not enough for it to be casually noticeable), fed you dog food and dirt sandwiches until you were 18, or forced you to live in an area where bullets flew into your room while you slept, forcing you to wake up in terror? There's plenty of evidence for the potentially devastating and permanent effects of trauma, poor childhood nutrition, and stress. Sure, some people manage to live like that and come out of it OK, but can everyone? Is it still right to hold someone so treated /morally/ responsible for doing poorly in their life?