Short

I have a personal philosophy that I think of as the “life’s too short” principle. It started when my kids were potty training. One day, I retrieved my daughter from preschool to find that she had had an accident, and along with her artwork there was a pair of poopy underwear tied up inside of a plastic grocery bag in her cubby. I looked at that little treasure and considered the possibility of opening it for only the briefest of moments before deciding:
life's too short to deal with this
and I dropped the whole bag in the trash can. Sorry, environment.

This perspective of mine is frequently reinforced by situations that involve the bodily fluids of my children. My girl clearly considers herself part camel, and claims to never need to go to the bathroom. ...Ever. So we have more than our fair share of incidents when she doesn’t quite make it. Life’s too short to ball up a pair of wet undies and stuff them in my purse.
This annoys my girl like you read about, because they are always her favorite undies, and I’m just going to throw them away like garbage? (I need bendier italics to convey her displeasure). But come on, girl! If you don’t like it, don’t shit your pants.

My philosophy often comes up around issues of food and drink:

Life’s too short to buy the cheap tomatoes.

Life’s too short to drink bad coffee
(no offense, El – but at least I didn’t say cheap wine)

Life’s too short not to send back poorly cooked food,
but that doesn’t mean you should be all snooty and impolite about it.

And sometimes my philosophy comes up in a good way with my kids:

Life’s too short to let the ice cream truck pass by unhailed,
even though I could buy a whole goddamn box of good humor bars for what that crook charges for just one.

Life’s too short to not jump in the ocean
fully clothed if you really feel like it


Life’s too short is a way of life, people! It transcends rules and expectations. It offers you an out when you know you should, but you just don’t want to. And why the fuck should you? There’s often a way to say yes instead of no, there’s often a way to make it fun instead of just getting it done. Life’s too short for this job, this affliction, this bore. And you know what?

Life’s too short to train for a 12k.

I think I hear the ice cream truck.