Quote of the Day:
“Sometimes you gotta say “what the f*%#” ” –Tom Cruise as Joel Goodman, Risky Business
TB thinks its important on Sunday mornings to take my little girl to church. I also think its important to travel. So we are often out of town on Sundays and thus free to skip church according to the complexities that constitute my conscience. Because we are so often travellin and allowed to miss church guilt free, when we are home there is a soul squeezing imperative to take the straight and narrow path to the sanctuary. It is what is right for my daughter and undoubtedly a sensible course for myself. But it means we have too few lazy Sunday mornings, shave free, cartoon full, and breakfast, slow. This morning was one designated for our spirituality. As you may have by now guessed, we bailed. Forgive me lord, it felt great.
I think within everyone’s internal code, there is a place for the WTF philosophy summed up so perfectly in Risky Business, so long as it is carefully deployed on matters of great import. For skipping church, getting an extra pizza topping or starting a blog, the occasional “what the f” carries very little down side. However even on these relatively minor issues it shouldn’t be used too freely lest you find yourself sitting constantly at the laptop searching for inspiration, fretting the straining seam in the seat of your pants and learning pagan rituals. But the real danger of having “what the f” as part of your decision making arsenal is when you are contemplating the big decisions. I’ve had two of the biggest decisions of my life come down to the reasoning tiebreaker and be broken by WTF. Law school? WTF. Quit my easy, well paid job and move 200 miles away to start my own outfit? WTF. As I sit here I don’t know if I’m simply blocking out the other times I’ve used it on the momentous or if its only been twice. But as far as I can recall, I’m 2-0 on the big ones. And on the lesser wtf’s? Hard to say, but I’m guessing a success percentage well over 75. You won’t see many motivational speakers advocating WTF, but take it from me, it can work.
In fact, suddenly I’m thinking, why not just stay up all night, maybe improve this essay, maybe finish the cold pizza in the fridge, maybe look up what kind of activities are conducted at the summer solstice, and sleep til noon like the good old days.
Nah, I better get some sleep. I got things to do tomorrow.
Travellinbaen 
What?!? No final WTF? 🙂 I hear ya though, sometimes the inner super-ego takes over and makes me do grown-up stuff. bleh.
Sounds like your two big WTFs were pretty life changing! And inspirational to boot!
Sometimes I curse my prudence. It’s not nearly as fun as the recklessness, and far more dominant.
As the, I think, youngest member of the TB universe, I’m curious how quickly the recklessness disappears? I know mine has dissipated quickly over the last 3 years. The WTF moments have all but disappeared. Although I did recently get a date via the WTF. So I guess it’s not completely gone.
I’ve had a few WTF moments some good and one majorly awful one but I did get a nice parting gift. IR – you were lucky enough to be more like me in that regard instead of like your sperm donor whose every thought is WTF – some day the consequences will catch up with him. “When in doubt don’t” kind of kills the potential WTF moment.
Way off the subject BUT I have had the pleasure of looking at the 1987 PHS annual today. Love all the mullet type hair do’s. I would say those are all WTF moments but then ya’ll just didn’t know any better.
Not directly on point, but it does concern the use of curse words, I just wrote about a study that showed that people who cursed while experiencing pain were able to withstand the pain longer than their non-cursing subjects.
So, putting the two together, I think that if you literally say the words WTF while making the life-altering decision, it will make it less painful, or if it turns out to be painful then you exclaim WTF?!?! and you can bear it better.
WTF?!?!
My whole life is a “WTF” kind of moment, though sometimes it’s a question and other times it’s simply a statement of fact.
We always skip church. I really need to get on that…. Eh, screw it. I prefer my Sundays full of cold pizza and sin.
I believe you’re on to something, as many of my bigger decisions in life have been decided by either “WTF” or “F*ck it”. I really think that f*ck is mighty powerful.