Relative Something

I don’t know why I do it. It’s like a bad habit. It doesn’t feel like stubbornness, but I’m probably not the one to judge. That trait is more easily seen from the other person’s perspective. I tend to adopt little pet problems that, by lack of any initiative on my part to take any action toward resolving the situation, I allow to negatively impact my activities over and over and over again.

I compare it to the plumber who works all day long fixing other people’s plumbing and then neglects to do anything about his own dripping faucet, except that my issues don’t all align with my day job activities.

Long ago, the battery for my laptop computer began to show signs of failing. When it reached the point of simply allowing the computer to shut down without warning, I responded by making sure to never use my computer when it isn’t plugged in. My son asked me why I don’t just buy another battery. Hmm. I don’t know why. That would sure take care of the problem.

He also tells me that it’s not efficient to keep many tabs open in my browser and may slow processes. Sometimes, when I’m waiting for the spinning beachball icon on my computer while it struggles to accomplish some invisible task, I think about what he said. For whatever strange reason, my attachment to navigating with multiple tabs open for days on end does not yield to such informed advice.

I’m inclined to wonder if growing up in a house where my father ripped out the kitchen cabinets and never replaced them, contributed to my ability to live with inconveniences. I didn’t know any better at the time. I liked the metal shelves that were put up to hold dishes and dry goods, like cereal and snacks. It was easy to see everything out in the open like that.

Using a vice grip pliers to turn on the water in the shower after the knob quit working never seemed that outlandish. Little did I know that such a skill of adapting to adversity would turn out to be a curse of tolerance for absurdity later in my life.