Home > Work > Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
121 " It wants to focus on being a good person, not just a barely not horrible one. "
― Allie Brosh , Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
122 " I don’t like when I can’t control what reality is doing. Which is unfortunate because reality works independently of the things I want, and I have only a limited number of ways to influence it, none of which are guaranteed to work. I still want to keep tabs on reality, though. Just in case it tries to do anything sneaky. It makes me feel like I’m contributing. The illusion of control makes the helplessness seem more palatable. And when that illusion is taken away, I panic. "
123 " Dear five-year-old, What the fuck is wrong with you? Normal children don’t have dead imaginary friends. Normal children don’t pick open every single one of their chicken pox scabs and then stand naked and bleeding in the darkened doorway to their bedroom until someone walks past and asks what they are doing. Furthermore, normal children don’t respond by saying, “I wanted to know what all my blood would look like. "
124 " For me, motivation is this horrible, scary game where I try to make myself do something while I actively avoid doing it. If I win, I have to do something I don’t want to do. If I lose, I’m one step closer to ruining my entire life. "
125 " The window was covered by a screen, but my dad had shown me how to remove a screen as a preemptive safety measure in case I was trapped in a fire and he couldn’t get to me and I turned out to be too stupid to figure out how to kick in a screen to escape death by burning. "
126 " but her licking did not appear to be localized to one spot. Rather, she was walking around the room licking seemingly at random. She lay down on her side and kept licking out of the side of her mouth while staring directly at me. At that moment I realized that I needed to know for sure whether my dog was retarded or not. I Googled “how to tell if your dog is retarded” and after a bit of research, I found a dog IQ test that looked fairly legitimate. "
127 " The human brain knows when it isn't ready to discover everything about itself, and there are a few emergency-emergency security measures in place to keep you safe in the event that you decide to go traipsing around in your deep brain-wilderness like a reckless idiot. "
128 " This particular dog is not anywhere near the gifted spectrum when it comes to solving problems. In fact, she has only one discernible method of problem solving and it isn’t even really a method. But making high-pitched noises won’t solve your problem if your problem is a complete inability to cope with change. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the simple dog did not understand this concept and she went right ahead and made an interminable amount of noise that was just invasive enough to make sleeping impossible. "
129 " futile as trying to run away from lava in swim fins. "
130 " motivation is this horrible, scary game where I try to make myself do something while I actively avoid doing it. If I win, I have to do something I don’t want to do. If I lose, I’m one step closer to ruining my entire life. And I never know whether I’m going to win or lose until the last second. "
131 " For a little while, I actually feel grown-up and responsible. I strut around with my head held high, looking the other responsible people in the eye with that knowing glance that says, I understand. I’m responsible now too. Just look at my groceries. At some point, I start feeling self-congratulatory. This is a mistake. I begin to feel like I’ve accomplished my goals. It’s like I think that adulthood is something that can be earned like a trophy in one monumental burst of effort. What usually ends up happening is that I completely wear myself out. Thinking that I’ve earned it, I give myself permission to slack off for a while and recover. "
132 " don’t like when I can’t control what reality is doing. Which is unfortunate because reality works independently of the things I want, and I have only a limited number of ways to influence it, none of which are guaranteed to work. "
133 " I went and played with my toys, but I did not enjoy it. "