Tuesday 29 January 2013

Musings on the Rational and Irrational Mind.

So I’ve just got back after a fairly hectic hour or so of driving around in peak hour traffic trying to make a centrelink appointment that was impossible to make. During which time I continued to get progressively angry and bitter at myself, and the multitude of idiots on the road who apparently forget how to drive at 3-4pm but mostly at myself.

Okay so a little back story, last week I was supposed to have an appointment at centrelink, which I honestly thought was the following week and it turned out to be at the exact same time as my Grandad’s funeral, only to find out the next day I put in my early job search b.s. having received advanced notification about it. I called up and after the standard hour wait to incredibly loud music, I made an appointment for today at 3:55pm (because I really couldn’t be bothered going to the one at 11-12ish). Going back a bit further than that, I promised my friend Jon Goon to pick him from the airport when he flew back in home Malaysia landing at 1:30pm today.

Of course only on reflection a couple of days ago (and a confirmation from Jon via a phone call) I stupidly thought, “Hey, I’ve got time to spare, I can do this AND pick up my new hat from Morley”... that’s not entirely true because another part of my brain was going “Fuck I’d better make this work because I can’t let Jon down but I don’t want to bail on two appointments with those asshats, they might stop my payments!”. I suppose if I was the think straight for five seconds, something that seems to be increasingly difficult of late, I probably could have either called in a favour to get Jon a lift or phone centrelink this morning for another appointment... So you can pretty much see the folly of my stupid bone-headed decisions already, I apparently have forgotten “Murphy’s Law”.

So everything was going fine, I leave a little later then I wanted to but even after picking my hat up managed to go to my super secret parking spot near the airport to wait for a msg to say he’s ready for pickup. It gets to 2:30pm (one hour after the scheduled landing) and I’m starting to get slightly antsy when finally I can a message, stating that the plane only just landed after being delayed after turbulence, doing the quick mental math from experience of picking people up from the international airport and figured he’s got 30-60 minutes dealing with luggage and customs. That’s when I start to panic about my appointment. It should have been at that time I called centrelink, except that I knew my phone’s battery wouldn’t last the obligatory 1 hour waiting time to obnoxiously loud music. So I waited around in my free parking spot for another 30 minutes then finally get another message that he’s waiting on one last bag. I wait around for another 5-10 minutes and think “Fuck It” and drive to the airport and park in paid parking, because to my messed up brain thought this would be more efficient way of extracting Jon without having to deal with all the idiots driving up to the ‘pick up area’ and praying he’d arrive in the 15 minutes of free parking. Thankfully he did and managed to book in some pretty good time. It was pretty much all going well... and then the congestion hit Tonkin. It was pretty much at that time I knew I was boned. So feeling a little pissed at myself for being such a stubborn jackass, I took Jon back home (although it was truly great to see him and was so happy to have helped out), helped him with his luggage and decided to try and go home before the rush got too busy.

You’d think it’d end there, oh boy you obviously fail to understand how my brain works sometimes because naturally I’m getting closer to home and I think, “You know what? I think I can get to centrelink before closing!” and by now I think you’re seeing a pattern emerging. I think it was all the imbeciles added to the aggravation and me putting the boot down which seemed to tighten that logical gap between “Fuck I missed my appointment” to “Actually I should go reschedule”. Probably the smartest thing I could have done and managed to get there about 10 minutes before they closed. Why this is smart is because they have a record that I at least got there (albeit 25 minutes late) so it at least looks like I’m making the effort.

Now I’m betting you’re wondering what any of this has to do with the title, then you pretty much weren’t reading closely. Today has been pretty much a clusterfuck of rational and irrational decisions. It wasn’t until after I finished at centrelinnk and had calmed down enough that I realised just how stupid I was today, and how stupefyingly bad some of those decisions could have been. To be completely honest there was a small amount of time I seriously comprehended leaving Jon at the airport to fend for himself (sorry Jon) but rationally prevailed because I stood my ground and fulfilled my promise, and I think a lot more highly of my friends then I do of centrelink and I refuse to let them down without a fight. Okay another tangent (have a drink), but I think you get my meaning. I try and be as much a rational and level headed person I can at most times, but I’m still prone to bouts of irrationality and stupidity especially when plans go astray, which can also lead to anger and depression especially if you’re already in a weakened emotional state. I suppose the lesson to be learned from all this is Keep Calm and Carry On ... wow, did I just go there?

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