Be There Or Be Square

I've heard it said that ninety percent of life is just showing up. I really don't understand how that is, although I recognize that the consequences of failing to show up are often serious. I guess it seems like being somewhere only matters if you have the means and inclination to do something when you get there. This lack of clarity on my part aside, I must concede the difficulty I sometimes have in being somewhere as promised.

I guess that badly contradicts my previously expressed attitude about not wasting other people's time, but there it is. I'm as fallible as anyone. I have identified two main problems which confound my best intentions of showing up on time or at all. The first is that of transportation woes. Even those with cars face this, and those without deal with it all the more. Too many times, I have wrongfully put my trust in the public transportation system, with the result being people in my life regretting having put their trust in me.

A second problem is that of getting up on time. That has been less of a problem, but still crops up occasionally to my obvious chagrin. There can be nothing which more neatly and clearly lays bare a person's unreliability than that they cannot wake themselves up in the morning. Not that much more worse would be failing to make it to work due to an inability to dress oneself. If that sounds harsh, let me reiterate that I myself have been guilty of this offense, and do not grant myself a pass. Sometimes, waking up five minutes late means not just that I'll be five minutes late to a commitment, but that sometimes I won't manage to make it in at all.

A third recent problem that has come up as I have gotten a little bit more popular has been that of not making to one place because I wound up at another. I wrote about this previously, and am still working on how to resolve conflicts between two equally important and/or desirable events scheduled at the same time. Sometimes there are criteria which reveal understandable reasons why I might opt for one over another, such as cost or feasibility of travel. In such cases, no one then need feel slighted, but the remainder prove problematic. I'm presently engaged in watching old episodes of "Three's Company" in hopes that they will prove edifying.

I guess that life would lack a certain spice if one were to get all their faults and imperfections squared away in advance of laying down on their death bed, but I nonetheless would like to dispatch some of the more affecting but manageable ones while still in my prime, so that I can be all the more productive during that time. Obviously I want to leave alone the demons and problems that work for me as a creator alone, but the other ones I hope to deal with. The nature of my writing will surely reflect the progress thereof.