Following Directions

It's easy, right?

Someone either hands you a piece of paper with instructions or tells you verbatim what to do.

Any person capable of reading or listening can carry out a directioned task. Unless, of course, you are one of the two girls that used to sit directly across from me in my 11th grade AP English class...

It also follows that the less instructions, the esasier the task.

Take for example, preparing a pb&j sandwich vs. assembling a kitcken cabnet from Home Depot:

vs.

[note: Person in second situation would have been better off forking over an extra $50 to have a fully assembled piece delivered by a hot, 20-year-old delivery boys - especially in my case].

The difficulty of a task usually comes in the length. I recall a Algebra test in 8th grade that our teacher distributed to her classes the first day of school to test our knowledge. There were, oh... 25 Questions. But before any of them, one short sentence:

"Please write your name and date, then turn in your paper."

I was one of the idiots to speed through the test seemingly to show off my smarts. But all I really did was show off my lack of attention to detail.

Assuredly, never again after that.

Now the whole "rule of instructions" bit seems to ring true to me on every account except when severing ties with someone who is not condusive to a healthy lifestyle.

Because there is only one direction, right?

1. Do Nothing.

"Do Nothing" applies across the board to any and all of the following (and more):

(q) The phone is ringing. Should I answer?
(a) Do Nothing.
(q) I recieved a text message from said person. I wonder if I should write a short message back...?
(a) Do Nothing.
(q) I want to see them.
(a) Do Nothing.
(q) I want to hug them and fix everything.
(a) DO NOTHING!!!

Directions that ARE NOT appropriate in the aforementioned scenario:
1. get really angry
2. call 27 times in 5 minutes
3. surpass the speed limit by 20 mph
4. run a stop sign
5. get pulled over by law
6. come to realization of what happened
7. cry your way out of a ticket
8. go home with nothing

[hey, man... sometimes your firey side takes over... but don't do this! i was thoroughly embarassed - i can't imagine it'd go much better for you].

-or-

1. go help one more time
2. get talked into something you never wanted
3. loose self.
4. loose friends.
5. start over.

I'm telling you - this one-step set of instructions seems to be the hardest. But since it is only one step, you should be able to remind yourself every hour or so until you don't need it anymore. No one ever wrote it down for you - well now I am. Please refer to the above, as well as my official, bold-faced statement below:

In Times like these...
DO NOTHING!!!!!!.

I swear to jebus - if this backfires, call me and i'll buy you a shot...