"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

issues
Feb 23, 2002 - 8:43 pm

i have nothing else to do.

then i come to some conculusion and don't have anywhere to unload but here.

take the the whole car thing. to me this has become a semi-obsessive quest to find the perfect car for near zero money. i've made hundred cars online on all the sites. i've rummaged through sites that have inventory. i've gone out and drove the cars, wasting the time of the sales guys, but that's their job. i've crunched numbers trying to find out how i can get a lease to the numbers i want it to be. i've had disscusions with the managers of stores about how leases work and why some car companies offer leases on cars that cost the same at different rates.

all this sounds normal. however, my original quest was to find the cheapest car that i could deal with for three years and go with it. i've yet to look at a single car under my current payments. instead i've obessed with cars that have over 180 horses...i drive ONE mile to work and ONE mile back, all on city streets. i don't go anywhere on weekends but to the grocery store. why do i need such a big engine? i feel snobby towards cars with 110 or 130 engines. i want a sunroof. again...where do i go that i need one? thanks to my dad, i won't even consider a used car.

well, my granddad really. see, my grandparents used to have this little black box thing on the kitchen table. every now and then when we were there they would get a call, open up the box, shuffle through some index cars and read off the card. my granddad was friends with a guy who ran a used car dealership and so every now and then, to sell a car, the dealership guy would call my grandparents and ask them about 'a car they used to have' and they'd read whatever was written down for the car. that they only used it on sundays to get to church or some shit like that.

is it bad to swear in a sentence with church? i'm not even christian so i don't think it matters.

i think i've taken the whole car thing and made it to symbolize a hell of alot more than it really is. in truth, i should be getting a saturn. i can do a decent saturn for fifty or more bucks less a month than i pay now. it's a decent car and i can get it loaded for that price. but see....all my life i've always settled for things. i've always done what was easy or what made sense to everyone else. it's not that i gave up a dream of my own or passed on my own ideas to do what others thought i should...i never even bothered to really decide what i wanted to do.

my parents decided, as parents do, that i should play sports when i was little. it's a good decsion. my brother played soccer and swam. so i played soccer and swam. i didn't like soccer so much so my dad decided i'd go play little league baseball. mostly it was swimming. that's what i did from five to age 18. i've spent countless hours in chlorine filled water. i never really wanted to swim. i tried to take a summer off when i was sixteen and got all sorts of peer pressure and coach pressure to swim. i was seldom really into it. what sport would i have liked to have done? i dunno, that never really came up. my dad was an offical for swimming and my brother swam...so i swam. what should i have gone to college for? i went for pharmacy cause i once said i liked science in high school...and my mom wanted me in the healthcare field. she's a nurse and my brother was in medical school. my three 'choices' for college were: pharmacy, hotel/motel management and stock broker. does this sound like a person who has a clue what he wants to do? are the three even mildly related? pharmacy won cause of my parents. i only lasted one year, well not even a year. see in swimming i could get by not really into it cause i had some natural ability. in college pharmacy classes you actaully have to care and want to study. i did neither. so i switched out to business..saying the truth, i had no idea what i wanted to do. i left the expensive private school and went to the cheap state school. businesses classes are much easier. i didn't have to study for them and i graduated with honors. a business degree is pretty much worthless. it doesn't give you and special skill set.

i off on a tangent. my point is..i think i'm all into this car thing cause i actaully want to decide for myself what car i want and get it. i've talked to my parents and they want me to get something cheap, who cares if it's nice? save money. settle for something that will let you get something better next time...blah blah blah.

see, i've put all sorts of meaning into something that should be simple. i have way, way to much free time. i even get pissed at myself for doing things like this...and still i do it.

deep down, i think have some major self acceptance issues.