A Philosophical Take on a Mundane Occurrence
When putting gas or delaying it until the next drive, what is the proper perspective? I have always thought it was stretching the tank as far as possible in order to do fewer gas station visits in one lifetime.
I haven’t met a person that thinks like this, but I am sure there are a lot of people that that put such things together like that.
I do know some people are procrastinators. They just won’t do it if they can wait a little longer, even if it means that they will have a harder time with it later. This is a completely different angle on the same thing.
Imagine being stuck in traffic on your way to work and then desperately needing to fill the tank! This is a possibility both of these perspectives open up.
I am starting to think that if you want to find a reason for going to the gas station only when you absolutely need to, it’s better to take the position of the procrastinator. You delay in order to put aside that which you need to do, instead of philosophizing about the end of your life measured along a track of how many times you escaped doing something unpleasant.
I don’t want to be the procrastinator, and I don’t want to think the way I have about such things anymore. I am starting to consider little duties like pumping gas as moves that need to be timed. For example, if I have a quarter tank, it may be enough for the weekend, but then what about work on Monday? The right move is to do it now, so that you don’t do it under duress.
Reflecting on this for a second, I have the feeling that this is how most people behave, just from my chats about other’s weekends, including their obligatory trip to the gas station. In fact, it is starting to dawn on me that this is how everybody does it — except procrastinators, of course. I feel that with this new outlook, I have attained a modicum of wisdom, but then that means wisdom is far more common than I expected before I ever started attaining any of it.