Monday, May 31, 2004
Tell me why
Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself
When you're old enough to repaint, but young enough to sell?
[NOTE: The following blog entry is not about the federal election. I know that this space's coverage of the federal election has been relatively lax (I was going to apologize for this, until I realized that it's my fucking blog and that you guys can vote with your hit count if you don't like it) and I intend to change that in my next two posts, but for now I'm going to prattle on about myself for a while. Besides the original purpose of this blog was to be incredibly self-indulgent, and on this, my one hundredth entry, it seems à propos to stick to that mandate as closely as possible. If you really need a federal election fix, POI is back up. Thanks for your patience, and I promise that I'll go back to unqualified (in every sense of the word) punditry in short order, and that I will come up with some beautiful simile to describe the New Democrats' approach to PSE.]
[ANOTHER NOTE: Most of the following is None of Your Damned Business, which makes it somewhat odd that I'm posting it here. But I am because, as I believe I noted earlier, it's my fucking blog. But the fact that I'm posting it here does not mean that it is suddenly Any of Your Damned Business, it just means that I've decided to post stuff that's None of Your Damned Business.]
Without further ado. . .
[LAST NOTE, I PROMISE: After that last line, I realized that I didn't really know what "ado" meant, so I looked it up. It turns out that it means "bustle" or "fuss", which I found strangely disappointing.]
The entry. . .
You know how, every so often, an event occurs in your life that is of such significance, such monumental importance, that it causes you to take stock of your entire existence? Well, that didn't happen to me tonight. What did happen is that my sandal broke.
"So, Steve," I thought to myself, "here you are - twenty-two years old, still living with your parents, no major declared after four years of University, extremely single (except for Webboard, the true love of your life), and working part-time as a bag boy at Safeway after you failed the cashier test. More immediately, you're standing in the middle of Lion's Park with one sandaled foot and one bare foot. I don't think there are many, if any, definitions of "loser" that would not fit you at this moment."
The sandal's breaking upset me for a few reasons: first, and most immediately, I was in the process of walking to the excellent St. Thomas Street Café to meet my riding's Green candidate (more on this meeting in a later post - for now, suffice it to say that he immediately got on my good side by asking me how long I'd had my blog), and this was going to make that walk (not mention the one back) somewhat more difficult (in the end, I just walked on grass with one sandal and one barefoot where I could, and hopped on one foot over those concrete portions). It also upset me because those were damned good sandals. Most of all, though, I think it upset me because I'd had that very buckle on that very sandal repaired before, and had been warned at that time that if I didn't take better care of it, the buckle wasn't going to last. I blew a second chance.
(Cue the awkward segue. . .)
Indeed, the theme of my life (if a twenty-two year old life, especially one as relatively uneventful as mine, can justifiably be said to have a theme) would seem to be blown second chances. The academic career? Well, a while ago I had to convince my faculty not to kick me out of school just because I was not, technically speaking, maintaining a satisfactory academic standing. Once they let me back in, I took advantage of their generosity by dropping two of my five classes and barely passing the other three. Second chance not totally blown, but not really fully taken advantage of, either. The jobs? Well, there were plenty of summer jobs available in December, and I didn't apply for any. Second chance - plenty available in February, too. Ai-j'en profité? Nope. On the relationship front? Yeah, a few second chances squandered there. . . like, fifty.
It's alarming to me that I, who I think am pretty intelligent, can exhibit such a stunning inability to learn from past mistakes. Second chances are precious enough things - why do I persist in squandering them, especially when I already seem to have gotten more than my share (Stephen Leacock once remarked "I am a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more of it I have," but his experience certainly doesn't match mine)?
The people who have accomplished things over the course of human history have done so by learning from past mistakes and taking advantage of their second chances. I haven't yet learned to emulate these people.
But tomorrow I'm getting that sandal fixed.
|
Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself
When you're old enough to repaint, but young enough to sell?
[NOTE: The following blog entry is not about the federal election. I know that this space's coverage of the federal election has been relatively lax (I was going to apologize for this, until I realized that it's my fucking blog and that you guys can vote with your hit count if you don't like it) and I intend to change that in my next two posts, but for now I'm going to prattle on about myself for a while. Besides the original purpose of this blog was to be incredibly self-indulgent, and on this, my one hundredth entry, it seems à propos to stick to that mandate as closely as possible. If you really need a federal election fix, POI is back up. Thanks for your patience, and I promise that I'll go back to unqualified (in every sense of the word) punditry in short order, and that I will come up with some beautiful simile to describe the New Democrats' approach to PSE.]
[ANOTHER NOTE: Most of the following is None of Your Damned Business, which makes it somewhat odd that I'm posting it here. But I am because, as I believe I noted earlier, it's my fucking blog. But the fact that I'm posting it here does not mean that it is suddenly Any of Your Damned Business, it just means that I've decided to post stuff that's None of Your Damned Business.]
Without further ado. . .
[LAST NOTE, I PROMISE: After that last line, I realized that I didn't really know what "ado" meant, so I looked it up. It turns out that it means "bustle" or "fuss", which I found strangely disappointing.]
The entry. . .
You know how, every so often, an event occurs in your life that is of such significance, such monumental importance, that it causes you to take stock of your entire existence? Well, that didn't happen to me tonight. What did happen is that my sandal broke.
"So, Steve," I thought to myself, "here you are - twenty-two years old, still living with your parents, no major declared after four years of University, extremely single (except for Webboard, the true love of your life), and working part-time as a bag boy at Safeway after you failed the cashier test. More immediately, you're standing in the middle of Lion's Park with one sandaled foot and one bare foot. I don't think there are many, if any, definitions of "loser" that would not fit you at this moment."
The sandal's breaking upset me for a few reasons: first, and most immediately, I was in the process of walking to the excellent St. Thomas Street Café to meet my riding's Green candidate (more on this meeting in a later post - for now, suffice it to say that he immediately got on my good side by asking me how long I'd had my blog), and this was going to make that walk (not mention the one back) somewhat more difficult (in the end, I just walked on grass with one sandal and one barefoot where I could, and hopped on one foot over those concrete portions). It also upset me because those were damned good sandals. Most of all, though, I think it upset me because I'd had that very buckle on that very sandal repaired before, and had been warned at that time that if I didn't take better care of it, the buckle wasn't going to last. I blew a second chance.
(Cue the awkward segue. . .)
Indeed, the theme of my life (if a twenty-two year old life, especially one as relatively uneventful as mine, can justifiably be said to have a theme) would seem to be blown second chances. The academic career? Well, a while ago I had to convince my faculty not to kick me out of school just because I was not, technically speaking, maintaining a satisfactory academic standing. Once they let me back in, I took advantage of their generosity by dropping two of my five classes and barely passing the other three. Second chance not totally blown, but not really fully taken advantage of, either. The jobs? Well, there were plenty of summer jobs available in December, and I didn't apply for any. Second chance - plenty available in February, too. Ai-j'en profité? Nope. On the relationship front? Yeah, a few second chances squandered there. . . like, fifty.
It's alarming to me that I, who I think am pretty intelligent, can exhibit such a stunning inability to learn from past mistakes. Second chances are precious enough things - why do I persist in squandering them, especially when I already seem to have gotten more than my share (Stephen Leacock once remarked "I am a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more of it I have," but his experience certainly doesn't match mine)?
The people who have accomplished things over the course of human history have done so by learning from past mistakes and taking advantage of their second chances. I haven't yet learned to emulate these people.
But tomorrow I'm getting that sandal fixed.
