Way One vs. Way Two

Okay, so here's the thing, and I'm still trying to fit this all together, but it (the thing) is something like this:

There are two ways to approach life. These two ways exist not as the absolutes that we often think in, but rather on either end of a variable spectrum. Absolutes are achieved only by the mentally ill or otherwise freakish persons of the world, while the variable spectrum takes care of the rest of us. Thus, anyone saying "I am [this way]" is lying. They are actually 63% one way and 37% the other way, or they are a combination of fourteen of the traits of one end of the spectrum and sixty-four traits of the other end of the spectrum, or they are some other way of stating this: in between. This in-betweenness, which yes, is now officially a word, leave me alone about it, is where the truth of life can be found.

But before your heads spin off into space trying to diagram and disect the above paragraph of abstractosity, let me get back to the two ways. Here they are:

Way One: You are an organized person. When a bill arrives in the mail, you take it inside and pay it immediately. You have stamps and an envelope in the proper place and in sufficient supply on your desk. If, one day, you run out of laundry detergent, this is not a problem because you have already purchased a second containter of detergent in anticipation of the first one running out. You exercise a regular number of times a week, every week. If you have a project to do that must be completed four weeks in the future, you schedule appropriately so that you spend consistent amounts of time during those four weeks working to finish the project in a timely and rational fashion. Your car payment makes sense. You vacuum your carpets weekly. You call your friends on their birthdays and send cards at christmas. Meals are planned a few days in advance.

Way Two: When the bathroom mirror is so dirty that you can't see to shave without nearly slicing off your nose, it is probably time to go to the store and buy some windex and paper towel to clean it off. This will take a while, though, because the gas light in your car has been on for so long that you probably can't make it to the grocery store without first going to the gas station. When you get home, you might actually remember to check the mailbox, which you haven't done for three days. The six bills you find in the mailbox will be added to the eight already sitting on your desk, resulting in the mysterious critical mass number (fourteen, this month, for some reason) that causes you to finally sit down and pay them all, and your rent, too. After that, you'll have to work for nine straight hours to finish the project which you've been putting off for four weeks. You will finish in just the nick of time to go turn it in, but will be forced to wear dirty clothes to work because you've neglected to go to the dry cleaners for the last two weeks. Later that day, when your doctor informs you that your cholesterol is 285, you will sign up for a membership at the local gym. You will work out every day for a week, then once a week for two weeks, then not at all until your next doctor's appointment.

Right. So these are basic ends of the spectrum, and we all want to be closer to Way One than Way Two, I suspect. But, likely as not, there is one hell of a lot of Way Two in all of us, like it or not, because we are not robots.

More on this tomorrow. I have to go to bed. That, for the record, was fifteen minutes.