Why does everything lose its allure or value or glory? Would somebody please tell me why? I buy some new earrings or even a purse, a toothbrush, a lipstick, it can’t get much worse. I feel like a kid again, playing with toys and then it starts getting very annoying. Seriously, I don’t consider myself a person who gets bored easily; my attention span can go on up to three whole hours. I can spend three hours straight with a person that I almost want to strangle to death. You see how tolerant I am! But for some odd reason, I feel like every single exciting thing I get in my life is only exciting for a certain period of time. Then it starts becoming normal. I mean, I’m happy about it for sure but with a sort of indifference. I can give you tons of examples. It’s like when I start a new job, for instance; I feel like I’m on top of the world for the first two weeks or even month; then it becomes kind of routine. It becomes “Oh man, I got the work done before the deadline.” And the perfection fades away. You start to see the imperfections. You start noticing that annoying element in the person sitting next to you which may be hygiene deficiency. You can’t help noticing that the person sitting across from you can’t shut up. You see the person behind the mask.
I tell you it’s scary. I mean, seeing things as they truly are can be brutal. I suggest that all people keep their masks on and that way, we can all have a more healthy environment. I don’t need to know that a certain guy beats his wife. I definitely don’t need to know that the other guy steals from his best friend. Oh and I certainly don’t need to know that the third guy’s badmouthing the boss. I just want to sit in my small corner breathing my smoke-free air. Is that too much to ask?
Now back to the subject of indifference. Another example is the killer dress I wanted more than anything. I’ll tell you what happened to it; it’s been six months and I haven’t worn it yet. Furthermore, I admit it was much too expensive. My cousin who’s seven was dying to buy a state-of-the-art video game for a fortnight and now he doesn’t even know where he’s stashed it. I talked to my best friend about this. I confided in her. I told her that I was worried it was something genetic. She gave me peace. Because of her, now I get to sleep at night. Apparently she has it too. It seems as though everyone in her family — and get this — everyone she knows suffers from it. So everyone I know probably does as well. In other words, I am not weird, my family’s not weird and that’s cool to know. So her younger sister bought a purple hairbrush. She couldn’t stop looking at it, talking about it and brushing with it. She was head over heels in love with it for two days. Now whenever she’s upset, she throws it against the wall; at least what’s left of it.
Oh, and her aunt likes buying candles. She buys all these scented candles and stacks them all in a huge cupboard. But what she does is whenever she gets bored with the grape ones, she brings out the lemony ones and so on. I found that intriguing. She’s keeping herself interested. She found a way to beat the system. And that’s what we should all do. I mean a universal problem needs a universal solution. So thanks to my best friend’s aunt, we’re saved. All we have to do is find ways to keep the excitement going.
For instance, if you get bored with an exercise tape, buy or borrow another till you get so bored with the new one that it makes the old one exciting. If you get bored with Italian food, try French for a while. If you’re sick of seeing the same people, go out and meet some new ones. Trust me, they’ll make the old ones seem like angels. Even if you get bored with your spouse, take a small vacation or send him away and you’ll probably miss him like crazy. Whatever it is you’re fed up with, take a break from it and you’ll renew your feelings for it. It’s also sad but true that you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. So think about that. I have these sunglasses which I thought I’d lost. And I can’t tell you how much I love them now. I mean, they are the best sunglasses ever!
Another thing, I talked to my orthodontist about how meaningless life can seem sometimes. And how frustrated and disappointed one feels at times. He told me that he believed in the theory that each person has his own problems and somehow he manages to live with them. And if it were possible for human beings to change their lives or at least their problems that each person would soon want his old troubles back. I found that theory somehow appealing. He gave me something to smile about. Nobody and nothing is perfect, but you have to find a way to make it all bearable. Maybe that’s what life’s about. Besides, if it weren’t for the defeats, the victories wouldn’t mean as much. Sometimes you have to lose in order to win.