The Pros and Cons of Pro-Con Lists

I am beginning to realize that spring break is not going to last nearly long enough. But then again, I don’t know why that should come as a surprise; it never does. But even still it has been a welcome respite from school and every stress that goes along with Tucson, with living in the dorms, with homework, with life. I can’t say it did not come at just the right time. I was nearing a breaking point. And now I’m only a few weeks outside of summer. I can feel it too. This morning I woke up with a strong desire to go play in the sun. If this was 1997, and I still lived in Ohio, and the family boat wasn’t slowly decaying in some storage space, and it was summer vacation, I would be on the lake right now. Everything would be perfect (and that’s not an exaggeration by any means. It would literally be perfect). If only, right?

Everyone keeps asking about what I am going to do next year. Maybe they don’t understand that I go as long as humanly possible without making decisions. Making a decision is probably the hardest thing in the world for me. I can’t do it to save my life. So next year is still as undecided as ever. And it will be for quite a while now. As of this time last year I still had 3 pro-con lists taped to my bedroom wall: ASU, U of A, and BYU. The BYU list was eventually taken down to make room for the other two. Ultimately they were abandoned all together. It seems for every pro I could just as easily think of a con, and every time I added to the U of A list the ASU list got longer as well, and vice versa. It is my mind’s way of playing tricks on me to purposely keep me from making a decision. *sigh* (Apparently I really am too witty for my own good, if I can so easily outsmart myself like that.) I wonder if I still have those lists somewhere. I doubt they will be of any more use this time around, (my brain undoubtedly will continue to come up with new clever ways to make me miserable) but you never know. Maybe they could help. I see desperation in my very near future.

Me: I really need to make a decision about this.

Crazy Me: Maybe, but you know you will never be able to make a decision until the last second anyway, so why bother?

Me: I guess. But I should start weighing the facts now. Maybe I’ll make a pro–con list!

Crazy Me: Go for it, but rest assured by the time you are finished each decision will have exactly the same number of pros and cons, thanks in large part to me; you’ll be back at square one.

The regular me needs to learn to outmaneuver the crazy me.* Crazy me thrives off the drama of waiting until the last possible moment to make a decision. I learned this handy fact from He’s Just Not That into You. I never realized how true it was until right this minute. Is it time to trim the drama from my life? Or is it time to break out a pen and paper and go to work on those never ending, completely unhelpful lists? I fear the latter.

*Editor’s Note: Neither of me cares how much a grammatical nightmare this sentence is. I am invoking poetic license, thank you very much.