Some people have ‘Live and Let Live’ or ‘Carpe Diem’. Mine is tied to pragmatism. And it still failed to save me from a blindsiding loss.
I honestly don’t even know where or when I had this phrase permeate my psyche like some sort of osmosis type event. Usually when you have a phrase resonate so strongly it infiltrates your daily thoughts. You would assume it would come out of some mind blowing exposure, searing your mind with its significance. Not this. It just appeared. I don’t know if it is attributed to any one individual creating it, or if it evolved out of a mindset I’ve carried which had finally crystallized into a code for living. However, there it appeared. Impacting the minutiae of my decision making.
Ensuring laptop is not left in the front seat of my locked car when I run into a convenience store? Check. Said laptop is redistributed to the backseat, preferably under whatever garbage inevitably was left by my multiples of children.
Running into my parents home on a quiet family laden street so I can drop off a parcel? The question and answer is automatically triggered.
Do I bring my purse? No.
The if of this mental statement compels me towards the then — do I move my purse to the backseat (invariably under the same old leftover garbage)? Yes.
I then spend the next few unnecessary seconds playing out this decision. Do I really need to? This is a quiet, nice area in the middle of the day. Maybe I can leave it on the front seat because I lock the door anyways. It’s five minutes that I’m at my parents house and I could hear if the window was smashed by a desperate individual.
As I already have this mantra guiding my movements, one would think this would be a no brainer decision. It’s my mantra and therefore should be a robotic action to store said purse in the backseat and not burn the finite amount of brain cells.
Nope. Not at all. It turns into an existential decision. A silent struggle. Would I like to extend the Universe a trusting solid and just leave it in the front seat, with me returning to said purse five minutes later and leaving with a little more trust in humanity? I guess I want the answer to be yes sometimes, hence the daily inner philosophic…
