50 Things I Wish I Wouldn’t Do

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  1. I wish I wouldn’t need prescription glasses.
  2. I wish I wouldn’t be unable to pee if there’s someone in the public bathroom with me.
  3. I wish I wouldn’t be 5’7’’.
  4. I wish I wouldn’t get mad at my girlfriend for being bad with directions.
  5. I wish I wouldn’t get shaky around confrontation.
  6. I wish I wouldn’t have standards for physical beauty so strict and unrealistic that even my girlfriend isn’t immune into falling into negative, unwanted categories.
  7. I wish I wouldn’t have a belief in the capacity of logic, reason and personal change so strong that it seems sometimes to limit my emotional intelligence to just above ‘Asperger’s.’
  8. I wish I wouldn’t drink so much.
  9. I wish I wouldn’t have hair that never seems to fall naturally and gracefully that way the hair of attractive people does.
  10. I wish I wouldn’t have taken the opportunity to buy a MacBook Pro when my grandfather was buying.
  11. I wish I wouldn’t ‘punish’ my girlfriend for things that don’t matter, like not understanding what amounts to a math problem, or for being confused about what to me seems quite clear.
  12. I wish I wouldn’t blame my girlfriend for feeling ‘off.’
  13. I wish I wouldn’t get depressed.
  14. I wish I wouldn’t be so self-aware that I seem to experience less genuine emotion than I would if I was less self-aware.
    15. “I wish I wouldn’t have to look in the mirror before I left my apartment.”
  15. I wish I wouldn’t find it next to impossible to emotionally connect with my dad.
  16. I wish I wouldn’t be making less than $15,000 a year at age 26.
  17. I wish I wouldn’t have this thing in my head that seems to automatically categorize each thought that runs through my head by what the corresponding movie scene or sentence in a novel would look like while I’m thinking that thought.
  18. I wish I wouldn’t participate in my girlfriend’s indecisiveness.
  19. I wish I wouldn’t genuinely believe that my destiny in hierarchical organizations is “little bitch who gets shit on.”
  20. I wish I wouldn’t brush my teeth only once a day.
  21. I wish I wouldn’t find many social conventions simply incomprehensible and as such appear maladjusted and socially incapable.
  22. I wish I wouldn’t shut down emotionally when I’m around my mom.
  23. I wish I wouldn’t have bad posture.
  24. I wish I wouldn’t want to cheat on my girlfriend.
  25. I wish I wouldn’t be incapable of dancing, laughing uncontrollably, yelling, screaming, fighting, or losing an argument without feeling embarrassment and shame.
  26. I wish I wouldn’t have to look in the mirror before I left my apartment.
  27. I wish I wouldn’t have crashed my former roommate’s car and then never compensated him for his consequent increase in insurance.
  28. I wish I wouldn’t have had a phase where I was addicted to pot.
  29. I wish I wouldn’t be 135 lbs.
  30. I wish I wouldn’t rely on the internet for validation, the meager surface-level fulfillment of sexual fantasies, money, and happiness.
  31. I wish I wouldn’t masturbate to porn.
  32. I wish I wouldn’t monitor my thoughts as much as I do.
  33. I wish I wouldn’t mysteriously ‘shut down’ for weeks in regards to writing, ideas for writing, ability to show emotion, and ability to feel anything other than a vague depression and intense indecisiveness.
  34. I wish I wouldn’t be incapable of writing about feelings of meaning and joy, instead only capable of writing about negative, pessimistic concepts that I know and understand.
    35. “I wish I wouldn’t be so obsessed with ‘authenticity'”
  35. I wish I wouldn’t be seemingly incapable of picking out the ‘right’ eyeglass-frames.
  36. I wish I wouldn’t be so sensitive to my emotional state that if I begin to have some unfettered experience I quickly, uncontrollably adjust and start perceiving it through a number of identity-related ‘lenses’ which in effect make the experience largely filtered and what, paradoxically, one of my ‘filters’ (i.e. lenses) calls “inauthentic.”
  37. I wish I wouldn’t feel embarrassed/ ashamed of my height.
  38. I wish I wouldn’t immediately think about how I would look if I was in a movie every time I begin to cry.
  39. I wish I wouldn’t have made a complete ass of myself the first time I met my girlfriend’s parents.
  40. I wish I wouldn’t be the type of person that lets one (self-perceived) embarrassing or unseemly situation fester and eventually create a large gap between myself and a friend and never again attempt to bridge that gap until it is somewhat forgotten about, then just hope we avoid referring to it the next time we hang out.
  41. I wish I wouldn’t have sold all my clothes before I left for Central America.
  42. I wish I wouldn’t get angry at my girlfriend for worrying incessantly.
  43. I wish I wouldn’t subtly manipulate my girlfriend – by the most subtle tweaks in demeanor and shifts in tone-of-voice – into thinking that she was stupid for things like getting a piece of food on her face, for example, or missing a belt loop.
  44. I wish I wouldn’t feel averse to physical contact with my close friends.
  45. I wish I wouldn’t by my nature be the type of person that is fundamentally and/or inescapably ‘alone’ in a very real, terrifying sense of the word.
  46. I wish I wouldn’t be a person that was sometimes unable to control the giant rush of thoughts running through his head in the middle of the night.
  47. I wish I wouldn’t perceive myself as a person with a highly limited capacity to feel emotion and genuinely believe that the worldviews I’ve consciously chosen and believe are “right” logically lead to me having a highly limited capacity to feel emotion.
  48. I wish I wouldn’t have days where everything seems great for reasons so abstract that I can’t understand them, yet know those days are limited, and know they represent a sort of microphase, and then wake up one morning to find that those days have inexplicably passed and that I am now, confusingly (even though I had recognized I was in a ‘phase’) in the days where everything seems against me and existentially fucked, for reasons so abstract that I can’t understand them, yet know those days are limited and know they represent a sort of microphase, and then wake up one morning to find that those days have inexplicably passed [etc.].
  49. I wish I wouldn’t become despondent toward my girlfriend but at the same time be capable of going out with my friends and talking so much that I feel embarrassed about it the next day.
  50. I wish I wouldn’t be so obsessed with “authenticity.”

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