Who Are You (ooh-ooh)
- Wade
dichotomy (dI-'kä-t&-mE): a division or the process of dividing into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities.
Wade goes running after work, five miles of hard-core aerobic exercise. Wade later goes out and drinks Long Islands and eats a plate of nachos.
Wade brews decaf coffee in the morning, wondering about the long-term effect of caffeine on his body. Wade later buys a six-pack of beer on his way over to poker night, which serves as a pre-game to the serious "consumption" of the night.
Wade never wants to be one of those 40 year-olds that look back and realizes he's been doing the wrong thing his whole working life. Wade wakes up early every day to get to his job he has no passion for.
Wade gets books from the public library to save money. Wade has no issues dropping $35 on a Friday night playing NTN trivia at a local watering hole.
Contradictions? Hypocrisy? Or just choices?
I was in Austin this past weekend. That generally makes me introspective. On top of that, I think I finally realized that the reason I can see more of my scalp lately is because my hair is actually thinning. (Huge deal for yours truly.) But I've actually been thinking about the above quite a bit lately.
It sometimes seems as though I'm two separate people, with two sets of values. On one hand, I like to stay healthy-- stay away from processed foods, drink water, exercise frequently. On the other hand, one of my favorite things to do is to go to poker night where we eat frozen pizzas, drink whiskey and gamble.
One would think (maybe) that if my value of healthy living was legit, I'd have a couple of beers on poker night, stay away from the pizza, and go home early to get a full night's rest. But I don't.
Similarly, I've started shopping at Cub Foods because it's cheaper than Lunds or Simon Delivers. But I'll sure pump those dollars into the jukebox at Williams' to shower Greenday on the assembled masses.
My question is... Am I schizophrenic? Can I believe in two different things (e.g., staying healthy and going out for drinks with friends) at the same time? Aren't I being hypocritical by doing both? Shouldn't I be able to stick to my guns if I believed in the "good" things as much as I say I do?
Or can these two seemingly-incongruous value sets be reconciled? Can I say that I exercise so that I'm able to relax my standards a bit on poker night? Or that I take my lunch every day so that I can drop money at Scoreboards for a night of beer-induced trivia fun?
I'd like to think I'm able to do both. But sometimes I feel like I'm not being true to myself. Yet, I think I might not have as much "fun" (whatever that is) by being in bed at nine every night, swearing off carbonated beverages, and ordering steamed vegetables instead of french fries.
And I thought I was all grown up.
What do you think? Drop us a line at webmaster@simpleprop.com and give us some
feedback. Maybe we'll even run your letters in future Gambits. 'The Daily Gambit' is updated every weekday.
