Dishonest Living – Friday September 25th

Dear Poor Lucky Me,

 

I like to tell people that I’ve quit smoking or that I’m on a low carb diet or that I work out six times a day or that I read the dictionary- ten pages a night. I say that I travel to Europe once a year at least, I say that I haven’t eaten red meat in ten years, I say that I volunteer for several organizations benefiting children and animals.

 

I say these things for a few important reasons: to make myself look better, to inspire myself, and to make other people feel inferior to me. Do you think this is a bad habit to maintain? In reality I live like a total animal.

 

Signed,
Not Exactly Lying, Just Revising the Present

 


Dear Not Exactly,

 

I think you do have a bad habit going there, especially when there is so much to be said for living like an animal. Quitting smoking and volunteering and traveling are all wonderful, but I bet your life is wonderful in it’s own chaotic way.

 

I quit smoking years ago and I can’t tell you how much I envy people who still hang on to their habit. I mean I know it’s not healthful and it’s socially abhorrent, but those things make it ever so appealing. Especially to people like me who have shed most of their bad habits and are now committed to exercise and oatmeal over raging bad moods and red bull and vodkas on Wednesdays.

 

Sometimes I think being a grown up means being neither fit nor drunk enough not to care. But Trader Joe’s does make an instant oatmeal with dehydrated blueberries in it, so things could be worse.

 

Not knowing how to pronounce “hyperbole” or “voluptuous” doesn’t mean that you’re life is inferior. I mean I’m not that good at parking legally but I do always remember my dreams, and I feel like I offer something very special to society. We all have skills, or powers, or even superpowers. Sometimes I think my ability to talk about myself for entire evenings is like a hyper-super-power. And it’s an important element to the universe. In my opinion.

 

Don’t revise the present, live in it.

 

Sincerely,
Poor Lucky Me
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