(by Pete Lopez. Read his blog Road to Absolute Zero.)
While navigating down the freeway of life, there are often times when a fork splits the road traveled. After executing a preference, I believe it is pointless to ponder if the contrasting way was towards the Promised Land. That impairs the opinion of the direction taken and starring in the rearview mirror slows down progress. In light of that, I have contrived a new premise that blindly accepts the option chosen as superior.
Life decisions are not black or white as there’s lots of gray. The outcome is incomparable to a sport or game of Connect 4 where one side is a champion and the other a goat. If I bet the farm on Team A but it gets clobbered by Team Omega, then obviously I made a foolish gamble. As I handover the pretend keys to the ranch and plow, I’ll berate that Team A was a bunch of losers. Their defeat was concrete evidence that the opposite choice was correct.
Back to life, deciphering where the unpicked course was destined is hypothetical. If my path turned out unsatisfactory then I previously believed the contradicting option was better. In actuality, there is a chance it's worse. The unselected road is a variable so my improved analysis is to assume it was more detrimental. It’s senseless to formulate a fairytale ending to only regret not having it. Here’s a novice example.
One afternoon I faced a dilemma about what to have for lunch during work. To simplify, the only meals available were a turkey sandwich and a bowl of spaghetti. A valiant effort was put forth by the heartiness of the pasta but as a simple man, it just seemed logical to have a sandwich for lunch.
Well to my disappointment, the turkey was dry and my lunch was ruined. I wanted to throw the remainder of the sandwich at the wall in anger and I couldn’t stop thinking how delicious a plate of pasta would have been.
Eventually I calmed down and set my new idea in motion. In the grand scheme of things, a lousy sandwich was not the end of the world. Besides, there was no guarantee that the spaghetti would have been an upgrade. It could have tasted just as poorly.
It’s also a rather messy dish. It’s quite conceivable I would have stained my favorite shirt, issued a speeding ticket while rushing home for a vest to hide the blemish, been late to the staff meeting at work, missed the announcement that Roger had a heart attack while being mugged and remarked something like “At least I showed, I bet Roger’s Roger’s probably drunk in an alley.”
That set of events was awful. The turkey sandwich was merely a waste of a few bucks, but the spaghetti would have damaged my favorite shirt, put points on my driver’s license and made me look like an insensitive jerk. After putting that in perspective, I felt thankful for my current state and silly about a tantrum over a meager sandwich.
Alright, now that you have been educated on the procedure, let me step the example up a notch. To protect the identity of the imaginary I will withhold names but let’s say I was simultaneously dating a princess and a scientist. By a cruel twist of fate, my worlds collided when an outbreak of the panda flu spread during the KAB (Kingdom Annual Ball). An emergency team of scientists was alerted to the epidemic and I was caught red handed slow dancing with the princess.
With my polygamous cover blown, it became mandated that I was exclusive with one of the ladies. Since I have a soft spot for chicks in lab coats, I desired to go steady with the scientist.
Unfortunately as time went on, we got on each others nerves and our relationship dissolved. We were both to blame as the unmethodical reasoning behind my essays made her furious and I grew incensed with her constant experimentation on my plant. Our separation was an upsetting experience and I began to believe that my choice was a mistake. I visualized myself happily married to the princess in a castle on top of a hill overlooking our peasants.
I then judged that proposition as far fetched. Movies and television tend to portray princesses as loving and caring individuals. Everyone knows that is not accurate because being born in the lap of luxury often leads to a lifestyle of selfishness. In a more realistic scenario, she would have demanded I quit nonsensical writing in order to worship the crown more.
I’d eventually succumb to my literary addiction and be caught scribbling a string of unrelated words together on a napkin. As she was the vengeful type, besides banishing me from the kingdom, she would have likely poisoned my plant, bleached my favorite jeans and flipped my calendar to the wrong month.
It was heartbreak when the scientist left and I couldn’t witness a beaker for months, but time healed my emotional wounds and plant. Life carried on and I had a positive attitude. Sure I was girlfriendless, but if I had chosen conversely, I’d be girlfriendless, plant-less, pants-less, empire-less and disorientated on what weekday it was for a while. I am grateful that I only lost was a few “metaphoric tears”, as real men don’t actually cry.
As you see, there’s much more comfort in pretending the unselected road had more potholes. It gives internal peace when predicting that the weeds were thicker, hell even full of thorns and camouflaging land mines on the other side of the fence. Maybe this paper didn’t come out as fantastic as planned and the illustrations provided were preposterous, but if I skipped writing, who knows what would have happened. I might have gone bowling, bumped into a colleague that fancied a tailor that once hemmed a pair of slacks for a druglord and before long, I'm penniless on the street abusing drugs. Thank you this essay for saving my life.
Life decisions are not black or white as there’s lots of gray. The outcome is incomparable to a sport or game of Connect 4 where one side is a champion and the other a goat. If I bet the farm on Team A but it gets clobbered by Team Omega, then obviously I made a foolish gamble. As I handover the pretend keys to the ranch and plow, I’ll berate that Team A was a bunch of losers. Their defeat was concrete evidence that the opposite choice was correct.
Back to life, deciphering where the unpicked course was destined is hypothetical. If my path turned out unsatisfactory then I previously believed the contradicting option was better. In actuality, there is a chance it's worse. The unselected road is a variable so my improved analysis is to assume it was more detrimental. It’s senseless to formulate a fairytale ending to only regret not having it. Here’s a novice example.
One afternoon I faced a dilemma about what to have for lunch during work. To simplify, the only meals available were a turkey sandwich and a bowl of spaghetti. A valiant effort was put forth by the heartiness of the pasta but as a simple man, it just seemed logical to have a sandwich for lunch.
Well to my disappointment, the turkey was dry and my lunch was ruined. I wanted to throw the remainder of the sandwich at the wall in anger and I couldn’t stop thinking how delicious a plate of pasta would have been.
Eventually I calmed down and set my new idea in motion. In the grand scheme of things, a lousy sandwich was not the end of the world. Besides, there was no guarantee that the spaghetti would have been an upgrade. It could have tasted just as poorly.
It’s also a rather messy dish. It’s quite conceivable I would have stained my favorite shirt, issued a speeding ticket while rushing home for a vest to hide the blemish, been late to the staff meeting at work, missed the announcement that Roger had a heart attack while being mugged and remarked something like “At least I showed, I bet Roger’s Roger’s probably drunk in an alley.”
That set of events was awful. The turkey sandwich was merely a waste of a few bucks, but the spaghetti would have damaged my favorite shirt, put points on my driver’s license and made me look like an insensitive jerk. After putting that in perspective, I felt thankful for my current state and silly about a tantrum over a meager sandwich.
Alright, now that you have been educated on the procedure, let me step the example up a notch. To protect the identity of the imaginary I will withhold names but let’s say I was simultaneously dating a princess and a scientist. By a cruel twist of fate, my worlds collided when an outbreak of the panda flu spread during the KAB (Kingdom Annual Ball). An emergency team of scientists was alerted to the epidemic and I was caught red handed slow dancing with the princess.
With my polygamous cover blown, it became mandated that I was exclusive with one of the ladies. Since I have a soft spot for chicks in lab coats, I desired to go steady with the scientist.
Unfortunately as time went on, we got on each others nerves and our relationship dissolved. We were both to blame as the unmethodical reasoning behind my essays made her furious and I grew incensed with her constant experimentation on my plant. Our separation was an upsetting experience and I began to believe that my choice was a mistake. I visualized myself happily married to the princess in a castle on top of a hill overlooking our peasants.
I then judged that proposition as far fetched. Movies and television tend to portray princesses as loving and caring individuals. Everyone knows that is not accurate because being born in the lap of luxury often leads to a lifestyle of selfishness. In a more realistic scenario, she would have demanded I quit nonsensical writing in order to worship the crown more.
I’d eventually succumb to my literary addiction and be caught scribbling a string of unrelated words together on a napkin. As she was the vengeful type, besides banishing me from the kingdom, she would have likely poisoned my plant, bleached my favorite jeans and flipped my calendar to the wrong month.
It was heartbreak when the scientist left and I couldn’t witness a beaker for months, but time healed my emotional wounds and plant. Life carried on and I had a positive attitude. Sure I was girlfriendless, but if I had chosen conversely, I’d be girlfriendless, plant-less, pants-less, empire-less and disorientated on what weekday it was for a while. I am grateful that I only lost was a few “metaphoric tears”, as real men don’t actually cry.
As you see, there’s much more comfort in pretending the unselected road had more potholes. It gives internal peace when predicting that the weeds were thicker, hell even full of thorns and camouflaging land mines on the other side of the fence. Maybe this paper didn’t come out as fantastic as planned and the illustrations provided were preposterous, but if I skipped writing, who knows what would have happened. I might have gone bowling, bumped into a colleague that fancied a tailor that once hemmed a pair of slacks for a druglord and before long, I'm penniless on the street abusing drugs. Thank you this essay for saving my life.
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