I am trying to decide if I should buy two
rolls of paper towel or three
and if I buy two rolls of paper towel now
then they take up less space in the bag that I have to carry home
but
if I buy three rolls of paper towel then I won’t have to go buy more
rolls of paper towel again as soon as I would have if I only bought two
and of course there is no right answer
but maybe
if I find myself going back to the store to get more paper towel
sooner I will suddenly be hit with inspiration on the walk there
or hit
by a car on the walk there and
if I got three rolls of paper towel then I would be avoiding that
altogether and I
would be more prepared for spills because
what if I only got two rolls of paper towel and ran out and didn’t
have enough time to get a new roll of paper towel and then if I
spilled something I’d have to use a sheet of loose-leaf paper to try
to clean it up but that isn’t as absorbent and the spill would stain
but
what if I got three rolls of paper towel and spilled something
after my third roll of paper towel ran out and if I had only got-
ten two rolls of paper towel I would have run out of paper towel
earlier and would have gone to get two more rolls of paper towel
before this happened and would be well stocked in paper towel
by the time the spill came around and
really what I am thinking is maybe
if I choose the right choice here and now in the paper-towel aisle
of the grocery store then my life is going to change and that
this one small choice will butterfly-effect itself into
finally
some new life because
isn’t that what we are always told that every small action counts
that one small thing can change someone’s life and so how are we
not always folding under the pressure of EVERY SMALL
THING MATTERING IN THE BIGGEST WAYS AND
SO NOTHING IS EVER REALLY A SMALL THING
IS IT NOT
EVEN HOW MANY ROLLS OF PAPER TOWEL TO
GET AND NOW I AM
in a different store and I have
found a shirt I love but
it fits me in two different sizes and
if a shirt fits in two different sizes should I just
get both and wear the larger shirt in contexts where the larger
shirt would be better and the smaller shirt in contexts where the
smaller shirt would be better and I
wish there was no choice at all but now I am
thinking
even if there was just the shirt in one size
should I buy two identical versions of it because
why would I not want a backup of a shirt that I found that I
adore because
do you even understand how hard it is to find a shirt that I love
and
what would I do if something happened to it like
if I tore it or
it slowly shrinks in the wash
which is incidentally another reason to get the larger shirt and
what if
I spilled something on it and
why do I have this preoccupation with spilling I don’t
think I’ve spilled anything in years because
one of the upsides of worrying about spilling things is that you’re
generally pretty careful about not spilling anything BUT
THE MOMENT YOU LET YOUR GUARD DOWN IS
ALWAYS WHEN IT HAPPENS AND WHAT IF
THE ONE TIME IT HAPPENS IS WHEN I HAVE
an important job interview or I have
an important meeting or it’s just
on a day when I have to interact with any person at all or I am
just at home by myself and even in that situation it
means I have ruined my shirt and then I think
so what happens if my shirt gets destroyed and I
don’t have that shirt anymore
well I can always get it again but then
what if I look up the shirt and I
find that
the store no longer sells that specific shirt anymore or
THE STORE NO LONGER EXISTS ANYMORE
BECAUSE AFTER ALL
EVERYTHING IS CLOSING THESE DAYS SO
why would I not stockpile as many of these perfect shirts as I
possibly can before they disappear but even
if I do that which of the two sizes should I get or should I just
get a bunch of both sizes so I can decide later and HOW
are there One Thousand different choices of yogurt and I don’t
even know if I want yogurt but now I’m
looking at all the kinds of yogurt because now I’m in front of the
milk and dairy wall and now I feel
like I have to decide because
there is a DECISION TO BE MADE AND I AM
GOING TO MAKE THE RIGHT ONE BECAUSE THIS
YOGURT IS GOING TO CHANGE MY LIFE WHEN I
DECIDE WHICH ONE IT IS AND I
don’t know where to begin should I
look at the sugar content first or decide if I
want fruit on the bottom or
maybe just start with choosing the flavor first but
what if the flavor I choose doesn’t come in the yogurt type I want
or what if my dad was right and I should only get fat-free yogurt
or maybe
whole milk will have a richer flavor and make me Happier and
what is
“AUSTRALIAN-STYLE” or
what if I get food poisoning if I choose the CONTAINER that
happens to have something bad in it and
it feels like there are too many variables and
it feels like I’m trying to decipher something that has One Thou-
sand different translations and which of those could ever be the
right one so I
do what I always do in these situations which is I
text you and
I ask for your opinion so it can override my inability to make my
own decision and so your opinion can become my decision but
really I
am just asking you so you will free me and maybe
it’s because you are the only part of my life that never feels like a
decision that I am pressured to make but
it’s also because I know
what you will say is what you always say which is
just choose any of them they’re all good don’t worry about it at all
and
even don’t worry about it at all is a decision even if it’s not the one
I was trying to make and
when you say it, it doesn’t hurt or diminish my feelings and
when you say it, it is freeing and
when you say it, I realize that that decision was the one I was
trying to reach for on my own but I just couldn’t
through all this information in front of me that I had to decipher
and
all this text in front of me that I had to translate but now
I am holding a Blueberry Flavored Whole Milk Greek Style Cup
of Yogurt, and now
I am putting it in my basket, and now
I am walking away from the dairy wall,
and all I can find myself thinking is,
it cannot be by coincidence that “decide” and “decode” are only
one letter apart.
From “Goodbye, Again” by Jonny Sun, to be published by Harper Perennial.
