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.

Happily Married, Day 726

My wife and I probably have the happiest marriage of all of our friends and family. We've only been married for two years, so perhaps I should not be patting myself on the back too grandly – nor will I soon be volunteering our services as marital mentors. We have a lot to learn, and both of us know it. Give us 20 years, maybe then.

Still, I must reiterate that I enjoy a spectacularly healthy and joyful wedded life, and this is no small feat on our part. It takes much work, because my pathological Inattentiveness inhibits the multitasking of our shared frugal domesticity (as I've noted previously). The main secret to our success, so far, is our mutual willingness to communicate with each other openly and honestly. When we do have complaints with each other, we always try to achieve a resolution without compromising either of our principle desires. Someday, my spouse will make a fine Senator.

I never want this honeymoon to end.

Of course, many hundreds of elements, mechanisms, and sub-routines constitute all the parts of a well-run engine, such as our marriage. We regularly apply dozens of other heuristics to keep each other satisfied with our life. For instance, I told my wife very early in our relationship that I did not ever want her or myself to go to bed angry, and that if we were angry with each other, we would stay up and talk it through until neither of us were angry anymore. (I got this idea from a Season 1 episode of "The Bob Newhart Show," called "Don't Go to Bed Mad.")

It worked out pretty well at first: 1) I am a tenacious logician, usually quickly recognizing whether my position is sound enough to argue for any length of time; 2) at my bachelor party, my best friend from my old school days told me that "No matter what, she will always be right," and that it was not even worth trying to argue. For the first year, I sublimated and let her have her way in almost all disagreements, (and again, this is no small feat on my part: ADHD makes me more single-minded than a pit bull on PCP.) One night, however, we had a fight too huge to ignore or dismiss, and we argued for hours until we were too tired to argue anymore, so… we went to sleep angry with each other. And we woke up still angry, which was such a huge waste of time. We were both tired and miserable all of that day, and we got over it (because nothing was worth staying angry with one another.)

That argument was important to our relationship though; it allowed us to grow in that I realized that I could not allow myself to be a doormat and a non-participant in the decision-making process, my wife realized that she could not sacrifice her sleep like that anymore, and we both realized that we preferred each other's company when we were not upset with one another. After that, we started working much harder to come to quick and satisfying resolutions to our disagreements, so that neither of us resented each other and so that we could remain contented as partners.

Now when we argue or become upset with each other (and it almost always seems to happen in the evening when we are both tired and cranky, though it only seems to happen once a month or so), my wife and I take a few minutes to collect ourselves. We internally sift through our experiences and try to see the situation from each other's perspectives, so that we can quickly-but-sincerely apologize and get on with the making up. Let's face it: making up is fun, but sleep is important. Perhaps, that is the best-kept secret to a long and happy marriage: a good night's sleep. I'll tell you what I've found out in 20 years.