According to one of those
expert-types on a TV talk show, to know what you really want from life you
should make a list every day of your wants.
He said after a few weeks a pattern will emerge and you can easily
identify your true dreams. I decided to
try it since this guy billed himself as a “doc with years of training.”
I
want to know why a canvas with circles painted in red and orange is hanging in
an art gallery with a $2000 price tag. I
painted better blobs when I was in kindergarten and no one paid me $2000. I
want bread that never gets stale. I want
to know why I still can’t spell conspicuous (if it’s spelled correct here, the
spell check fixed it). I want a
margarita. I want my baby toes to stop curling under. I want another margarita. I want to know why
green olives get stuffed with all kinds of things, but black olives don’t. I want the word “dude” banned from the English
language. I want Flintstones vitamins in
the color chartreuse. I want world
peace. (I threw that in just in case I
decide to enter the Mrs. America pageant someday.)
Two
weeks after I started this exercise the only pattern that emerged was that I needed
psychological counseling. I suspect the
eminent author of this advice was looking for more profound wants. However, I gave up wanting by “societies”
definition when I moved to the mountains.
Living at high altitude gave me a new outlook on life. Maybe it was just a lack of oxygen, but why
bother wanting a Sex in the City wardrobe when I was happy in jeans and a Tee
shirt. I don’t care if Carrie Bradshaw once
wore a pink tutu skirt, and a skimpy shirt with more bra showing than shirt…it’s
not a fashion forward statement I wanted to copy.
When Bertie showed
up at our local bar with yellow crime tape as shoelaces, no one thought she wanted to make a fashion statement. She simply did not have any extra shoelaces so
she improvised. Seriously, what was
Carrie Bradshaw’s excuse for that outfit?
I
want to know why a house with two people needs seven bathrooms. There are plenty of other ways to
conspicuously consume: seven Ferraris in the driveway, seven hot twenty-something’s
vying for your affections, seven yearly vacations to Fiji. Yet, some people really believe the number of
crappers is related to their level of success.
My mother is one of them; she called to inform me that my cousin was so
successful he was building a house with 10 bathrooms. I told her their family must be awfully full
of shit.
The
number one want on my mother’s list is for a more obedient, less sarcastic
daughter. Which proves it doesn’t matter
how many times you write down what you want, sometimes you’re not going to get
it?
I want rocks. They have wonderful personalities that live
for procrastination. It can take a rock tens
of thousands of years to form into a sparkling piece of quartz or jasper. During that time, the rock is happy to sit
where it is through rain, drought, and ice ages. This kind of patience inspires
me to drink coffee until noon, take a two-hour nap, and then work for 30
minutes.
I
finally gave up the daily want list. All
I learned about myself was I didn’t want my life controlled by some anal,
list-making, got-an-answer-to-everything-but-reality expert. Hey maybe that guy was right after all!
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