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Accomplishing something
May. 31st, 2005 09:27 amThe author of my favorite journal has been feeling like he needs to get going already on accomplishing something big in his life. Yeah, sure, he's gotten his mental health in order, gotten fit, started dating again, started moving up in his career, starting writing plays again, gotten involved in theatre again, and started saving real money for a house payment. But at the age of 36 it's time to decide what direction to go and just do it already instead of just playing around with various notions on the side. Is it time to start a production company? Move somewhere with better prospects?
Reading that makes me feel shallow. What I want to accomplish in life is to be happy. Which I am. That's so self-centered. If I were feeling like Patrick, I'd be thinking that I really need to get started on the best educational simulation ever made. Or at least a nice educational novel. Or start my own business teaching math classes to home-schooled kids.
But I haven't even gotten my web page together, where I hope to at least put up some pages showing beginners how to cook. I haven't even finished making my purse. Or started making a case for my new Mac laptop (though I have done much of the design work). (And we won't even mention, oh, organizing my desk. Throwing away stuff I don't use. That sort of thing.)
So, I decided that it was time to use the new mantra I learned (I am making a conscious decision to do this) and stop making the decision to play solitaire and start making the decision to get some sewing supplies. So there!
Unfortunately I had waited too long. The first store closed at 5:30. Even on a normal Monday it was open only until 8:00, and I didn't arrive until a few minute after that. The second store closed at 9:00 according to every sign I could find. Which would have given me plenty of time except that it wasn't actually open.
So I went to a discount store that was right next door (which shall remain nameless so I don't get sued for libel even though what I'm about to say is totally true). An employee was carrying something large into the store; another employee opened the exit door and pointed the first employee to it. I asked if the store was open, and she looked at me like I was crazy and said yes. So I went in the entrance door which did, indeed, open automatically.
I found a can of chili that intrigued me. Bison chili. The ingredients were actual food. Like water, bison, kidney beans, you know. Even though it was a canned food in a discount store. I brought one to the only open check-out counter and had it rung up. The cashier couldn't get the scanner to work so she typed in the price. I said, "This is taxable? Oh, fine." I'm such an idiot. I should have refused to pay tax on food. Meanwhile, someone put a chain across the aisle behind me, closing that register, as if the store were about to close. It was 8:30.
Then I went to the exit door, which didn't open, and someone called, "I'll be there in just a minute." But apparently that someone wasn't talking to me because about a minute later someone called to me, "It's open! Just push."
I was not in the greatest mood after this adventure and, ironically, calmed myself down with some more solitaire.
Reading that makes me feel shallow. What I want to accomplish in life is to be happy. Which I am. That's so self-centered. If I were feeling like Patrick, I'd be thinking that I really need to get started on the best educational simulation ever made. Or at least a nice educational novel. Or start my own business teaching math classes to home-schooled kids.
But I haven't even gotten my web page together, where I hope to at least put up some pages showing beginners how to cook. I haven't even finished making my purse. Or started making a case for my new Mac laptop (though I have done much of the design work). (And we won't even mention, oh, organizing my desk. Throwing away stuff I don't use. That sort of thing.)
So, I decided that it was time to use the new mantra I learned (I am making a conscious decision to do this) and stop making the decision to play solitaire and start making the decision to get some sewing supplies. So there!
Unfortunately I had waited too long. The first store closed at 5:30. Even on a normal Monday it was open only until 8:00, and I didn't arrive until a few minute after that. The second store closed at 9:00 according to every sign I could find. Which would have given me plenty of time except that it wasn't actually open.
So I went to a discount store that was right next door (which shall remain nameless so I don't get sued for libel even though what I'm about to say is totally true). An employee was carrying something large into the store; another employee opened the exit door and pointed the first employee to it. I asked if the store was open, and she looked at me like I was crazy and said yes. So I went in the entrance door which did, indeed, open automatically.
I found a can of chili that intrigued me. Bison chili. The ingredients were actual food. Like water, bison, kidney beans, you know. Even though it was a canned food in a discount store. I brought one to the only open check-out counter and had it rung up. The cashier couldn't get the scanner to work so she typed in the price. I said, "This is taxable? Oh, fine." I'm such an idiot. I should have refused to pay tax on food. Meanwhile, someone put a chain across the aisle behind me, closing that register, as if the store were about to close. It was 8:30.
Then I went to the exit door, which didn't open, and someone called, "I'll be there in just a minute." But apparently that someone wasn't talking to me because about a minute later someone called to me, "It's open! Just push."
I was not in the greatest mood after this adventure and, ironically, calmed myself down with some more solitaire.