Living life one mistake at a time

Why are we paying people to preserve our problems, and the business that Covid won’t kill, plus much more today at…

1. By the time you figure out what you want to do with your life, it’s too late. Yes, there are a handful of people who know their destiny from birth, but almost all of us bounce around from mistake to mistake as we try to make sense of it all. We end up in jobs we never heard of when we were kids, working with technologies and jargon that didn’t exist when we were born, following the path of least resistance more than we’re following our dreams. And yet, miraculously, I don’t know many people who are consumed by regret about dreams abandoned, about roads not taken. For the most part, we make the best of things and figure out a way to be happy, or at least satisfied, with whatever results we can carve out of our lives. 
   
   
2. I really miss clocks in diners. It used to be so easy to go to lunch with someone and check the time when you got bored with them. Just look over to the wall where the clock was, ask, “Have you seen our server?” and you knew what you needed to know. Now, you have to look down at your phone and everyone knows you’re counting the minutes until you can leave. 
   
   
3. All the first cousins took a tour of Chicago a while back, visiting all the places our grandparents and parents lived and worked and went to school as they built a life for us to inherit in this country. Of course, we had to imagine a lot of it, since pretty much every spot is now a Starbucks. 
   
   
4. When a show gets delayed by some news or other development, why don’t DVRs adjust and record the show at whatever time it actually starts? With all the technology advances in the world, this one seems to be so obvious and, to my uninitiated eye, so simple. There must be more to it, though, since we’ve been recording shows for four decades and we haven’t figured out how to make it work. 
   
   
5. If you’ve ever wondered why nothing gets done around here, consider the perverse incentives that drive our search for solutions. Customer service reps get better reviews if they get you off the phone quickly than if they actually solve your problem. Pharmaceutical companies make more money treating diseases than they do by curing them or, worse, preventing them in the first place. Politicians raise tons of money complaining about problems, while the coffers dry up after they’ve actually solved any of them. Think of almost any business/profession/venture where nothing seems to get resolved and you’ll probably find someone being rewarded for the wrong thing.
   
   
6. Sometimes people just give you a one-word answer to a question and you know that's an answer they give by reflex. I mentioned the homeless problem to a friend and, immediately, the guy said "welfare," as if he knew all the details. I asked about customer retention at a business and the owner said, "trust," although he has never actually measured trust among customers or whether they trust him more than they trust his competitors. I guess it’s easier to know all the answers if you don’t actually need to think about the questions.
   
   
7. We made sure to take our grandkids to the racetrack in Arlington Heights before it closed for good, and we took them to the Ringling Bros. circus before they bit the sawdust, as well. I doubt they’ll remember any of it when they’re older, but I’m hoping I get some points for giving them the chance to say they went there and did that. I’m sure it will be as impressive as when I tell Gen Xers that I saw a concert with Gerry and the Pacemakers. 
   
   
8. I went to a movie theater a few weeks ago because it was one of those films that you really want to see on a big, big screen. After paying for the tickets and parking and popcorn, we watched 30 minutes of ads and previews before the film started. When the theater goes out of business, they’ll blame Covid.

 
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