Your choice in the matter
You’re driving down the highway. It starts to rain. The wipers can’t keep up, so you lean closer to the windshield, in order to see more clearly. Does that additional six inches of focal length make a difference? Nope. But you do it anyway. We all do. It’s one of the instinctive behaviors that serve no useful purpose, but unite us as a species.
It’s summertime. You set the thermostat to 72 degrees and wear shorts and a tank top inside, with a fan blowing cool air your way. It’s the dead of winter. You set the thermostat to 70 degrees and wear cotton sweats, a wool cardigan and fuzzy slippers. Does the two-degree temperature swing warrant this extreme clothing response? Nope. But you do it anyway. You’re human.
You lick the foil top of the yogurt container, because you can’t let that .006 ounces of dairy goodness go to waste. You silently recite, “Righty tighty, lefty, loosey” whenever you pick up a screwdriver. You have a hierarchy of gummy candies. Somehow, you know that Gummy Bears are better than Gummy Worms, but Gummy Worms are superior to Peachie-Os. Or maybe it’s a different order for you. It doesn’t matter. You’ve still applied precious mental resources to ranking an entire class of candies. In the same way that you rank plain or peanut M&Ms, coconut / no coconut candy bars, and Red Vines versus Twizzlers licorice.
You assign personalities to numbers. For no apparent reason, you have favorites. You like the number six better than the number seven. (Sorry for putting those two numbers side-by-side, parents.) This tendency may go back to the childhood riddle: “Why was six afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine.” But I don’t think so. If you have a favorite number, you know.
You have Monday socks that don’t feel right if you wear them on a random Thursday. You have a favorite spoon for chicken noodle soup, but it doesn’t feel right for tomato. You stand in front of the cupboard, waiting to see which coffee cup speaks to you before you brew a pot. Is it foggy? Sunny? A holiday or a work day? These variables all count. You can’t explain why the coffee cup matters, but it does. I have an entire cupboard of mugs to prove it.
Having a “favorite burner” on the stove has become so universal, it’s been validated by the Internet. A host of memes acknowledges that we all pick our favorite burner and use it 85 percent of the time. Just admit it. The Internet doesn’t lie.
One of the most-loved personal quirks in my family is going for a drive on a cold fall night, with the windows down and the heater blasting. We want the bracing effect of that crisp, fresh air, but cotton sweats and a wool cardigan with fuzzy slippers aren’t enough to keep me warm doing 25 mph on a typical November night.
Maybe you have a percentage charge on your cell phone that feels safe, and one that requires immediate charging. So 60 percent is OK, but 58 percent requires instant access to a power source. Maybe you arrange your phone apps alphabetically, or sort them by category. Maybe you embrace chaos theory and simply search to find whatever app you need.
You can’t think if your computer desktop has even one folder displayed, or you can’t think unless there are 56 folders scattered like confetti across your background picture of the Himalayas. It’s all valid.
Denying people a choice, or ridiculing their sometimes silly, instinctive responses, is the surest way to make them feel less than. So go forth and embrace all your idiosyncratic whims, even if they serve no useful purpose. Lean closer to the windshield. Wear your Tuesday socks and drink coffee from your “It’s foggy and 65 degrees outside” coffee mug. We’re all in this together. And after all, it’s only human.