DEC 21, 12 .. PERFECTIONISM LEADS TO PROCRASTINATION WHICH LEADS TO PARALYSIS !

 Oh Yes .. those life crippling  ..  THREE  P’s !

PERFECTIONISM .. trying to be PERFECT .. LEADS TO ..

PROCRASTINATION .. I can’t do this perfect so I will ’put-off-even-starting-to-do-this’ ..

PROCRASTINATION .. leads straight to .. ‘Zilla ‘Do NOT Pass Go’ ..

PARALYSIS .. a 100% total lock-down .. stop-before-you-even-begin negative state-of-mind !

And I am one of them .. sad to say .. I'm a perfectionist ..

But I have learned how-to-deal-with this crippling affliction of perfectionism .. because I have found and I use several very important  tools to deal with it!  Perhaps my greatest single tool is the below wisdom.  I hope you study it!

I AM ONLY ONE ..  BUT STILL  .. I AM ONE!

I CANNOT DO EVERYTHING ..  BUT STILL  ..

I CAN DO SOMETHING!

AND BECAUSE I CANNOT DO EVERYTHING ..

I WILL NOT REFUSE TO DO THE SOMETHING I CAN DO!   

          MAY GOD BLESS YOU MY CENTURIES DEAD ‘MENTOR’ ..

             MISTER EDWARD EVERETT HALE ..

I’m sitting in my kitchen here in Royal Oak, Michigan, ‘whapped out’ from the trip .. so exhausted that it took two hours to ‘get some breakfast together’ .. and ..

My Web Mistress Gullible telephones me ‘in-my-head’ .. “Cap DON’T EVEN START THIS WRITING YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT .. IT WILL BE TERRIBLE!”

“But Gullible!” .. “Don’t BUT ME Captain .. you heard me!” .. “Sit on it! /s/ Gullible!"

Gee I hang up the phone and ‘Tom Tiger 48067’ telephones me ‘in my head’ .. “Cap .. how on earth can you pride yourself on driving six hours without getting out of your driver’s seat!  CAP GIVE ME A BREAK .. I am a professional trucker .. I drove for many years .. after six hours behind the wheel I would yawn and say six hours more to go before I take a break and in the first six hours I would have driven AT LEAST 420 miles .. not your piddling 319 miles! .. and further Cap .. I would have cut at least one full hour off your time!  A professional trucker would have exited Michigan Highway 14 off I-94 and cut through Ann Arbor to I-275 and run North to I-696 and been in your home by a minimum of an hour earlier than you were and I would’ve avoided the mess you ran into passing through Ann Arbor!  Heck .. I may’ve saved an hour-and-a-half Cap!" 

Man Tom Tiger 48067 you are now Tom TRUCKER 48067!

A quick aside .. Patti and I are rolling from Shreveport, Louisiana, heading West for Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas, in the middle-of-the-night and we call ‘Tom Tiger 48067’ and say .. “Tom we are on I-20 outta Shreveport rollin’ for Dallas / Fort Worth.”  .. Tom says .. “Cap and Patti .. say hello to Exit 182 called Engel Road!”

No matter where we called Tom from .. he would KNOW THAT specific  road!  AMAZING TOM .. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY AMAZING MY MAN!!  YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL DRIVER!

OK .. I hang up the telephone 'in-my-head' again and my Web Master Andre telephones me ‘in-my-head’ and says “Cap .. now you see why EVEN I YOUR WEB MASTER don’t read your posts!”

“What’s that you ask ‘Zilla?” .. “The point ‘Zilla?” .. 

 HERE’S THE POINT I AM MAKING! ..

ALL OF US HAVE THESE DRATTED-PERSISTANT-NAGGING-NEGATIVE-COMMITTEES INSIDE OF OUR HEADS .. AND IF I CAN SHUT-MY-COMMITTEES-UP AND MOVE FORWARD .. IT IS A SPIRITUAL TRUTH OF THE UNIVERSE THAT YOU CAN TOO!

Another phone call ‘in-my-head’ .. “What’s that Patti?  Work on my spelling and my grammer (grammar) some more!” .. “I do miss you here with me proof-reading these ramblings my dear one!”

“What’s that Julia Cameron?” .. “Oh YES .. it is the writing itself that calls ideas forth .. so just-begin-to-write and the ideas will flow!”  Again THANKS BRAD 49855 for the gift of Julia Cameron and “The Right to Write” ..

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This is what I started out to write .. a brief trip synopsis .. are you with me here ROBERT  94596?

We left Sunday, November the 18^th .. and both of us .. Patti to Anchorage and myself to Royal Oak .. returned to our ‘homes’ on Thursday, December the 20^th.  So our total trip was thirty three (33) days.  We drove through MI, OH, KY, TN, AL, MS, LA, TX, LA, MS, AL, TN, KY, IN, IL (Patti left in Chicago, IL) and I drove back myself from IL into MI.  Some 11 states. 

We drove 4,597.7 miles total.  139.3 miles driving per day on average. 

Gasoline cost from a high of $3.40 per gallon in Chicago all the way down to $2.95 per gallon in Alabama.  We saw it priced (where everyone else was buying their gasoline!) as low as $2.85 per gallon.  On the trip we spent $778.14 for gasoline (I have not yet filled up the tank since driving here from Chicago yesterday ROBERT 94596).  We purchased a total of 254.635 gallons of gasoline.   So our average cost per gallon was just under $3.06 ($3.056 to be exact).

The miles driven in the above gasoline totals (from100% full in Toledo, OH back to 100% full in Chicago) were a total of 4,194 miles so we averaged 16.478 miles per gallon of gasoline over this distance.  Our best was 18.246 miles per gallon in one stretch (298.2 miles) on the highway down to 17.638 (668 miles) and 17.412 (230.4 miles). NOT BAD FOR A BIG 1998 GMC SUBURBAN!  Clement in France ‘Googled’ this so he could see what our Suburban ‘Black Beauty’ looks like!

Robert 94596 where would I be if I hadn’t met you in October of 1965?  Here’s where I’d be .. alone in my own mind .. ah but I have you and your mind along with me as a fellow companion with me and with my mind!

 “What’s that Gullible” .. “Well I guess a few people are following along here!”           

“Yes ‘Zilla?” .. “Why so much detail ‘Zilla?” ..

SIMPLY BECAUSE  ‘Zilla .. I  can ‘see-in-my-mind’s-eye’ some of my gentle and humble friends over in India enthusiastically following along with us on their maps of the USA!  A trip few if any of them will ever have the opportunity to make.  FEW OF THEM have been able to SEE AS MUCH OF THEIR OWN INDIA as I have been blessed to see.  Lord how I miss being in India!  Mohnish and Sharma and Ivan and Lawrence and Jeevan and Vikas and Raj and Shivam (in 110 055) and many many more of you .. I’m leaving out you in Calcutta and in Goa and in the South .. Pondy and Kodikanal .. do not bet against me surprising-you-all with an in-person visit much sooner than any of us expects .. starting with me!  

Trust  ..  me  ..  on  ..  this!       I .. do .. know .. how .. to .. do .. world .. travel!   Health and Buckaroos and Guts .. I have all three on my side!

And in One-Short-New-York-Minute I can get going!  To quote Eli Wallach in ‘The Good The Bad and The Ugly’  .. “IF you are going to shoot!  SHOOT!  Don’t Talk!”  What a scene and what a line!

BUT HEALTHWISE .. This dratted Benign Positional Vertigo has given-to-me a huge wake-up-call!  All of our time-here is limited!  So (with discernment Father Abello!) DO IT NOW IF you are ever going to do it!  How could I NOT RETURN TO CALCUTTA!?  This is ‘tearing-me-up’ I so long to return to India .. and SOON!

“Yes Gullible?” .. “Call this a wrap you say Gullible?” .. “OK” ..

Since I began writing back in December of 1990 .. I will be forever grateful to those of you who have chosen to follow-along-with-me!  And to those of you who have joined me along-the-way-since!!

With MUCH LOVE on this Holiday Season .. I sign off for now .. Cap ..

So Patti my dear one .. call me when you've proofed this .. in the meantime the above is out-for-the-world-to-see-warts-and-all!