I Can’t Think of a Witty Title for This Post

Because I love you blog readers/friends so much, I’m sparing you the “first-world problems life update rant” post I was planning to write, and instead, I’m answering E.M. Kingston’s Sunday Ramble questions, which I found quite intriguing.

1) Glass half full or glass half empty?

It should come as no surprise that I, JYP, (aka “Judgy Young Pessimist”) see the glass as half-empty. But the nihilist side of me questions if it really matters. I mean, here are the possible outcomes for the half full/empty glass:

• Someone drinks the contents and then the glass is completely empty
• The glass is left untouched, in which the beverage eventually attracts bugs and becomes gross
• Someone knocks over the glass, spilling the contents everywhere, getting everything wet and breaking the glass.
• The glass decomposes in a million years

Does it really matter if the glass is half-full or half-empty? Photo by Manki Kim on Unsplash

I sense my readers are now wishing I’d decided to go with that first-world problems rant post instead. I’m sorry.

2) Train or airplane?

This is heavily dependent on where you’re going, right? But assuming it’s a destination for which one could plausibly take a train or an airplane and that the total airplane trip time (factoring in time for security and baggage claim) is less time-consuming than the train, I’d pick the airplane. I’d rather get to my destination faster. Also, I sleep reasonably well on planes.

Self-portrait of me sleeping on a plane. Not sure why the plane is pink. Maybe I’m flying Barbie Dream Plane Airlines. Photo by Zachary Kadolph on Unsplash

True story: When I was flying out to a job interview during COVID, Husband tried to convince me to drive or take the train instead. In other words, he wanted me to waste a lot more of my time travelling in order to quell his anxieties. I basically told him to fuck off.

In the end, I managed to get 1 out of 2 COVID vaccines shots before the flight, took a flight for the job interview, did not get COVID (although I did get horrible shot #2 side effects and Husband accused me of getting COVID because I saw my family for Mother’s Day, but that’s another story), got the job offer, and turned down that offer to take a different job offer which turned out to be a mistake of sorts. So, it’s questionable if I ever really got to “my destination”, and it’s questionable if I ever had a true destination in the first place.

3) Sneakers or dress shoes?

Bring both! Wear your sneakers for the commute to your office and then change to your dress shoes at the office. (I’m told the high-powered professional women of Washington DC do this – immaculate blowouts and makeup, perfectly tailored suits, and sneakers on the Metro).

Alternatively, wear your dress shoes to the wedding so you look good in photos, then change into sneakers once your heels start hurting so you can keep dancing late into the night. #priorities.

You should wear whatever shoes make you want to dance like this. (Don’t forget the silver sequined pants and eyebrow glitter!) Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

4) See the future or change the past?

Change the past. What’s the point of seeing the future if you can’t change it? Isn’t that almost worse?

I suppose that arguably, seeing the future could potentially quell certain anxieties. Like right now, I am driving myself mad because I don’t know if I will ever raise children, so potentially, seeing the future and knowing that children are in my future could be a good thing. But who says the future will be what you want? I could also just as easily find out with 100% certainty that I will never have children, nothing but that shitty consolation prize of Auntie roles to other people’s children to look forward to, which would suck.

I’d be better off having the ability to change the past in order to make better decisions that would lead to the outcomes I want. Also, changing the past could theoretically avert world tragedies, although it’s not obvious from the question how much of the past I get to change.

Not to mention, but would “seeing the future” actually mean seeing what really happens, or would it just be getting useless fortune cookie-style platitudes like this? Photo by Elena Koycheva on Unsplash

5) Test the waters or dive in the deep end?

If we are talking about literal water, assuming you know how to swim and it’s just a matter of going into potentially chilly water slowly or quickly, you may as well dive in, because it won’t be any less painful to go in gradually and diving in can be exhilarating.

If we’re talking metaphorically, like giving up your stable career in hopes of becoming an actor or quitting your job and cashing out your 401(k) to start your dream business, test out the waters first by auditioning for part-time community theatre and taking acting classes, or by starting a side gig and writing a business plan, before you blow up your life.

This is the problem with dumb clichés like “take risks”. Smarter advice would be “assess risks, plan risk mitigation strategies, and then take risks”.

I get that “Assess and mitigate risks before you take them (eg. Build a bridge! Feed the alligators first so they won’t be hungry if you fall in! Take a plane!)” doesn’t sound sexy and motivational but “Take risks!” without any qualifiers or caveats is just dumb advice. Image by Pintera Studio from Pixabay

If we’re talking about literal water and you don’t know how to swim, learn to swim first. That’s just common sense.