When the reverse order takes over

I just sent a WhatsApp and when I read it, I saw that I had left out an important word, thereby changing the meaning of my message. I quickly sent another one to correct the error. Of course, I should have read the message before pushing the send button, but the reverse order somehow took over.

 

The same happened the other day when I ordered jeans online in size thirty-one. After I made the purchase, rather than before, I went to my wardrobe to check if my size is indeed thirty-one for this brand of jeans. It’s thirty-two.

 

I do check emails before I send them, but I still overlook crucial information like dates and numbers. It's as if my brain is already on to the next thing I plan to do, I read the words, but my thoughts are somewhere else so the meaning of what I wrote doesn’t register.

 

Offline, I notice that a stronger force regularly takes over. I check if I have my house key after, rather than before I close our front door. This morning when putting the fruit I bought in the fridge I realised that I should have checked what we had before going to the market because now we have too many blueberries and no strawberries.

 

But how bad are my too-hastily-taken actions really? I never harm anybody; most of the time I just cause myself some extra work. Could it be that what really bothers me is that I do not live up to the idea of myself I’ve constructed in my mind, that of a man who has the discipline to pause before he acts?  Sometimes I am that man, particularly when important decisions are concerned. But too often I’m rash and hurried. At those times it feels as though I want to get things out of the way as fast as possible so I can go on to more urgent tasks, even when there are no urgent tasks to be done.

 

I’ve intended thousands of times to act more slowly but no amount of will power can reroute the wiring of my brain. So there really is no point in trying to live up to a self-image that does not correspond to reality.

 

I will return the jeans, put an additional key in my bag, eat a lot of blueberries and continue to send WhatsApps and mails to correct the things I’ve written erroneously.

 

I will just go with the flow even if that flow is in reverse.