The Beginning of the End, or the End of the Beginning?

The old bald guy in the hot tub told my friend and I that his kids have a curfew of 12 because "nothing good ever happens after midnight." One of the many insightful things he shared with us, yet I couldn't agree with him more. Which got me to thinking that, in general, most things go downhill shortly after they begin, and once they hit a certain point it seems that nothing good can come of it.

Exhibit A: Yogurt.
I think most would agree that the best part of eating yogurt is licking the foil top. (If you grew up with parents like mine, "waste not, want not").

Shortly followed by the bush league container contents that always seem to be just 2 degrees shy of being just the right temp.

And then comes the mental agony of not being able to scrape it all out. If I just angle my spoon like this... oh, got it, oh there's just a little more... (Ok, maybe that part is just me and my borderline OCD complex, or "waste not, want not")... but I swear the yogurt companies make the containers just narrow enough so that the suckers that try to get the last bit out get it on their knuckles and can never actually get the last bit out. They're out there laughing somewhere. I'd laugh too.

But in the end, the end is never as good as the beginning, and only slightly worse than the middle.

Exhibit B: Personal Email Accounts.
Each day, part of my routine consists of logging into my personal email account to check my emails. For some reason, when I log in, it shoots me out onto a cover page. (Why doesn't it take you straight to your inbox? Why Yahoo, why??!). It tells me I have XX unread emails. Wow! That's fabulous. I feel pretty good inside as I click the inbox link and momentarily hike over the top of the excitement curve. Only to find that 11 out of the 12 new messages are from the pizza hut... and other various email junk that I have a love-hate relationship with. The end, is such a sudden and abrupt halt to anything good that happened in the beginning.

Which brings me to Exhibit C: Junk Email.
I sign up for it, receive it, realize it's junk, but just can't seem to unsubscribe. I just can't take the finality of the unsubscribe link. They should really have a 'pause these emails' link or a 'send me only the really good stuff'' option.

In the beginning, it's the bogo coupon you get every Tuesday. Or the announcement of the presale for "select" email customers. In the middle, it's scroll through and look for any coupon, and then delete. In the end, it's a daily bombardment of 25 junk email newsletters reminding you that they cater lunch events and there's free shipping on all orders over $50. Also reminding you that the only friends you have that actually email you are blockbuster, pizza hut, rubio's, and pottery barn. Awesome.

Exhibit D: Your Toothbrush.
There is really nothing like the feeling of breaking out a new tarter titan. The first couple brushes are glorious. Like little purifying pixies came and scrubbed the inner depths of each tooth. Then brushes day 2 - 48 are run of the mill, intermixed with the occasional delight that your toothbrush is your favorite color or has that neato rubber grip. This is of course followed by the impending demise where the bristles are so far frayed out that the ends don't even touch your tooth and you're pretty sure your finger could do better work. Who freakin' cares if its purple. It's a worthless piece of crap. Yep, sounds like an end to me.


So in the end, which really comes right after the beginning, since the middle is the beginning of the end, we must learn to enjoy new things. Like a good meal, the beginning of anything is always the best part. Such is life, and is like life, that we are always trekking toward the end and forgetting how good the beginning was, and is, and will be.

"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today" - or in the sense of this blog -

Enjoy the end as if it were the beginning, enjoy the beginning until its end.