My Own Worst Enemy

Earlier, I published the following post on my other blog This Graduated Path, but afterward I realized that the post would be more appropriate for this blog. I apologize, in advance, for the repetitive circular nature of this, but I just don't have the energy to be as OCD as I would like.

Do you find yourself consistently making the same mistakes? Generally, you learn from your mistakes—and you aren't insane—but day after day, you get the same erroneous results because of some small careless misjudgments. It's as though you're Theseus trying to find your way out of the labyrinth, and that pesky minotaur keeps cutting the rope you've been using to mark your path. This way's a dead end, so I'll go that way… no, that won't work… ah, I haven't tried this other path before… wait, yes, I have definitely tried that as well. It's a nightmare, seemingly without end.

For example, my wife and I own a fantastic black & white Brother laser printer. It prints quickly and cleanly, and the toner lasts ten times longer than your average ink jet drums. The printer has been a real boon, saving us a lot of money. Again, it's a great printer—when it works. Lately, our printer hasn't worked. It probably hasn't operated in a year, and we would love to get it operational again. Unfortunately, I have had no luck contacting customer service and support, to get the company's help figuring out how to fix our printer.

At first, I just procrastinated and kept putting off the call for the next day—and the next day and the next. After a few months of that, I started getting serious with myself, but when I finally got around to making the call, it would be after-hours or on the weekend. Obviously, I could no longer get a hold of anyone at that point, because regular folks don't take calls at the office when they aren't getting paid for it. Months more had gone by when I decided, Eff this, I'll wait for them to call me. (You see, at that point, I had briefly become insane, but I got over it.) Finally, I decided that pigs might grow wings before I heard from the support technicians, so I decided to call again. Now months and months have gone by since this had originally become a problem, so I don't know where to find any of the paperwork I need.

Week #50, me: "Wife, where is the paperwork for the Brother?" Wife: "Did you look here?" She finds the paperwork right away. This morning, my phone is dead. I plug it in until my phone has fully charged. This afternoon, I pull out the paperwork my wife has set aside for me. I flip to the table of contents, "Troubleshooting - User's Guide Chapter 6." There is no chapter 6! I turn to the front cover and discover I've been thumbing through the Quick Setup Guide for the Brother Laser Printer. So, I give up… and then at 5:15pm, I realized I could have just looked up the company's information on the internet!

If any of you think that you have my comedy of errors beat, I'd really like to read about it. Please feel free to leave a comment or four, and we can commiserate. Anyhow, thanks for spending some time with me.

What Do You With a Pushy Neighbor?

My wife and I have a neighbor who takes every opportunity to let us know how much our lifestyle inconveniences him. Without going into too much detail, he wants us to stop one of our rituals, so that he can have a better quality of life. Yet, this particular ritual (running a few miles on the treadmill) is necessary for my wife's health. Her rare blood-clotting gene that demands from us both the highest standard of health maintenance.

My quandary, of course, persists: do I convince my wife to forestall her morning run? No, I would sooner risk my own health, than my wife's. Should she, instead, continue running on the treadmill? Well, that is the issue, isn't it? She must run on the treadmill, yet our circumstance is preventing her from doing so.

As a clinically Inattentive man, I have a tendency to be pathologically single-minded. Once I make a decision, I usually do not adjust my tactical approach, which is not the best operational method when diplomacy is necessary. This will be an interesting chess match indeed.

To Blog Or Not To Blog

Read Driven From Distraction. Without a doubt, it is the best book on ADHD for those who have the disorder and for those who need to learn about it.

Started blogs before.

Got bored after while.

Then I started other blogs.

Got bored with them.

Just started a new blog.

I'm bored already.

The problem isn't that

I'm wasting time,

It's that I have the time to waste.

We'll all be lucky if this lasts a month.

Normally, I'm not so melancholy, but this gloomy weather is really getting to me.

I'll drop by my support group tomorrow night, but right now I have other stuff I need to do.

(TIP: If you're writing for people with ADHD, put all the most important information at the very beginning of whatever you've written. They probably won't read the rest anyway.)