top of page
Search
  • Writer's pictureCharlotte Frost

Some Are So Determined

Updated: Aug 27, 2020

to make their life hard.

I got a message this morning in my online horse racing game from a newer player I'd been communicating with. He was in distress, because his computer had suddenly shut down, and he'd lost three spreadsheets of information on the 700+ fake horses he owns.


Of course, my first thought was, "Why aren't you keeping all your information in the cloud?" He was a middle-aged person, and surely understood enough about computers to know that storing stuff only on a hard drive is risking losing it. So, my next thought was that maybe he's one of those people who is suspicious of keeping stuff in the cloud. I myself know that there's no guarantees, but if the cloud were to suddenly blow up, I'd hardly be alone in the harm it would do to me.


So I expressed sympathy to this player and, because I couldn't help myself, mentioned the cloud. He's a person who has confessed to fits of anger (and apparently hates his life much of the time), and so he went on a little rant about how much he distrusts the cloud -- not because it'll blow up some day, but because people steal your information etc. He then spelled out all the processes he was going to do to compile all the information again. Whatever. I didn't bother responding.


It always amazing to me when people deliberately make things hard for themselves -- usually as a matter of principle. Wearing a mask isn't going to stop me from getting COVID if I've attracted it to myself. But I wear a mask in public, because life is just plain easier (and therefore more enjoyable) to go with flow -- drop the oars of the boat and let the stream of life carry me -- rather than exhausting myself paddling upstream in the name of "Nobody is going to tell me what to do."


The funny thing is, when we push against something in life, the very thing we push against is what is controlling us. If my neighbor is annoyed that I'm letting weeds grow on my side of the rockbed that separates our yards, I could say, "Well, fuck him. I'll just let the weeds grow taller. That'll show him!" And so I make a point of not spraying the weeds, and he gets more frustrated and contacts the homeowner's association, who then contacts me. And now I need to come up with a clever retort to them, to demonstrate to them that they aren't going to tell me what to do (never mind that I signed the HOA agreement when I moved in). And then get fined. And my weeds continue to grow -- when I otherwise would have sprayed them a long time ago, but now it's a matter of defiance. So, my management of my side of the rock bed is being completely controlled by by neighbor, because his actions dictate my actions -- or lack of such. My decisions concerning the rock bed are all about being in opposition to my neighbor. And our conflict drags on and on, in a state of escalation.


Of course, being one who appreciates a peaceful and carefree life, if my neighbor really were to complain about weeds in our mutual rockbed, I'd simply spray them. Problem solved. Carefree live goes on.


I love my life. It focuses on the things I enjoy and find exhilaration in, rather than pushing against the things I don't.





8 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page