Conversing With Myself

[Authors Note: This is one of my earliest published pieces. It was originally published in August of 2000 in Between The Lines Literary Magazine, an online publication dedicated to literature and art written by high school students.]

One day, while wasting a weekend doing pretty much nothing, I was looking for something simple to occupy myself with. I walked past the mirror, but I didn't walk past the mirror on the other side. I was just standing there, looking at myself walking by. I was laughing. I looked like an idiot too.

I asked myself, "What are you laughing at?"

I replied, "You! Look at you! You have all this time that could be used doing things! You could be drawing, working, writing, playing, talking to people, or any other moderately useful thing, and here you are, just wandering around aimlessly, trying to waste time!"

I looked at myself oddly. "What are you talking about? Why is that funny?"

I responded, looking myself straight in the eyes, "Imagine if you will, you are given $864.00 at midnight every day. You can spend this money however you wish, but at the end of the day you must give back whatever you haven't used. Each day this happens, and you can choose to invest it or just waste it. After a week, you have used $6048.00. After a year, $315,360.00! And look at you now! You're just throwing this money into the streets!"

Obviously, I knew not what I was saying. I asked myself, "What?"

I sighed deeply, then explained. "Every second of your life represents a penny. Every second goes by, and a penny is removed. You decide whether it's spent on something worthwhile, or just wasted. You have a set limitation, of course. Once all of you money is depleted, you don't get any more. Your life ends there, and you can look back on your life and truly decide whether it was a worthy investment."

I was beginning to understand. "I'm beginning to understand," I said, "but, who are you, really?"

"Who are you, really?" he said.

Just then my friend walked by. "Who were you talking to?" he asked.

"Oh, just myself."

"I always thought you were a bit odd." he replied.

As he walked away, I looked at myself. I gave myself a slight wink and a nod, and ran off to write this anecdote.

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