Tag: issues

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What Brown Can’t Do

The slogan for UPS used to be “What can Brown do for you?” and I think of it every time I sit here trying to be a zen master, trying not to use every swear word I know to describe the brown truck and the clueless driver who can’t find my house.

Warning: Rant coming.

We live rural. And with that comes a lot of adjustments that have to be made. We have to drive half an hour to get to some semblance of civilization (i.e. the nearest Walmart). We have to commute half an hour to get to our respective jobs. And we live on a road that claims to be in Poland but is actually in Newport.

Hence lies our troubles with UPS (apparently FedEx can find us, no problem).

They just can’t seem to find our house. Time and again we’ve ordered things online and they just haven’t been able to make their way to us. Just before Christmas I had an amazing present for my wife coming through UPS, and the truck drove down our road but didn’t stop at our house. I saw it. It passed right by, slowly, but our driveway is very long, and it was impossible to get him to notice me shouting from the garage doorway. Continue reading “What Brown Can’t Do”

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Easier to Run

billmurraydonthasslemeimlocal“It’s easier to run, replacing this pain with something numb. It’s so much easier to go than face all this pain here all alone.” -Linkin Park

There’s an especially poignant scene in What About Bob? when the mercurial therapist, Dr. Marvin, tells the delusional patient, Bob, that he needs to take a “vacation” from his problems. Of course Bob takes the therapist literally, deciding to take an actual vacation, as if physically changing location could magically take care of his problems.

I laughed when I watched the movie and Bob shows up at the doctor’s vacation home to explain how amazing his “vacation from his problems” is going to be, because to me it was ludicrous to believe the way he did, and yet many people think this is the cure for what ails them. They go far away, thinking that when they return home their problems will be solved. Not so.

I understand the sentiment, though. It does seem easier to run when faced with what seem like insurmountable odds or issues that often derail us. It’s one of the reasons the divorce rate is so high. Instead of facing the problems in our relationships, we simply ditch the relationships, which we think solves the problems. Yet, when we don’t deal with those issues, when we don’t talk them out, we never realize why they were there in the first place and we are doomed to repeat them in future relationships. Continue reading “Easier to Run”