A Nifty Fifty

I normally don't buy into those kinds of surveys that ask 7,390 inane questions like, "If you had to eat Chinese Food or Italian Food, which would you choose?," But via another blog (She's here), I found that one of her goals was to answer, "The Fifty Questions that Will Free Your Mind."

I thought it was kind of odd to have a goal to answer a survey. I mean, it's a survey, right? It's Chinese or Italian. It's "What color hair do you like on members of the opposite sex," or "If you could switch places with any celebrity for a day, who would you choose?" It isn't, though. Just by reading the list, I was forced to think introspectively and really concern myself with the matters of my own heart and mind. Sometimes, I think, I'm "out to lunch," so to speak, when I'm saying or doing the more boring things that my life entails (work, brushing my teeth, cleaning), but someday I'm hoping that I'll be conscious for all the parts of the day.  

Not that I would be able to answer these fifty questions in one post, but taking the time to answer a few at a time would probably be extremely cathartic.

1. "How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?"
     This is a question that I'm constantly puzzled with when I spend any time with people my own age. As I've written about before, I feel like I'm still a kid that couldn't possibly be old enough to have children, a house, and all of those things that old people seem to like (money, 401ks, escrow, saving money for vacations that don't help them relax, etc.). If I had to pick an age, I'm guessing that I'm around sixteen. I mean, I can still drive and manage a bank account, but I can't really fathom all of the things that my parents (i.e. old people) do. Somedays, though, I feel like I might be eighty: with a bevy of unidentified pains and a horrid feeling that I wasted my life, but others, I ache for the opportunity to be five: and have a lifetime to figure it all out again (except for potty-training. That's really something I need to experience only once). I guess, I have no idea how old I am and when I don't have any idea how old I am, I never have to act my age.

2. "Which is worse, failing or never trying?"
     One of my personal pet peeves is when someone is posed a question and they say, "Well, it depends." Of course it fucking depends. Everything always depends. When I read this question, though, I must admit that the first thing that came to mind was, "Well...it depends." I say that because it seems so easy to answer this question with, "never trying," because you want to be like Miley Cyrus and act like you gain your character from The Climb, in all actuality, failing can be extremely devastating. Think: losing your life savings while pursuing a dream business-venture, or even just something as practical as skydiving. That's a one-shot deal, folks. I often find myself worrying about the consequences of something that I've never tried (man, I'd like to banish this quality within myself), but I also am still dealing with the emotional consequences of the failures that have plagued me throughout my life (especially in my career-development). If you're me, apparently, you can't win with this question.

3. "If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?"
   Good Question! The way I feel about this question can best be summed up in a song by The Smiths,

"In my life, why do I smile at people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?"

This song is the ballad of the retailologist. Why do we do these things? Because we live in a society that thrives on misery. I feel like most people's train of thought goes something like this, "Well, I hate my job but if I don't spend most of my waking week there, I won't be able to afford that house that I never have time to see or afford that vacation that I want to take to escape my job. Why do I stay at this job and afford these things? Because I've been here the longest without a promotion, and goddamnit, if I'm going to be miserable at least I'm going to be miserable the longest out of all of your motherfuckers."

What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Dustin has been schooling me about not doing things that I don't want to do, just because I think that I HAVE to do them. This schooling basically consists of Dustin saying, "We don't HAVE to do anything, Jessica," and then Jessica says, "Yes, sometimes we do, Dustin." To which he says, "Why?", and you know, I haven't really figured out how to answer that question.