Where's my damn Carmex at?

I always carry on my person a package of floss, a tub of Carmex (not the tube or the stick, those suck), and a nail clipper. I'm currently keeping an eye out for a suitable container that will make it possible for me to also carry a couple Tums as well.

In part I've built this mini medicine cabinet in my pants because, frankly, dudes have pockets. I could carry a lot more and still be comfortable, and who likes to waste space? But the addition of each specific component was caused by crises. I've been in situations where I need each of these thing and had to take a shot in the dark. Asking people if they, in the off chance, had a set of nail clippers on them (of course they didn't) convinced me that I guess I'd have to be that guy. Now at least I know if some poor schmuck out there decides to take a chance and ask if anyone has nail clippers I've got his back. Also I will never worry about hangnails again.

This is a mundane example of pretty important principle I hold. I believe that the fact that something occurs once means it could possibly happen again, and that this in fact changes the nature of the world. I want to live in a world where you can ask if anybody has a set of nail clippers on them and some dude will be like, "Yeah." By carrying the clippers on me, I become that dude and this becomes that world.

Better example. It was raining one day in high school, and the food court was about a hundred wet, rainy yards away from where all the kids were huddled under some overhangs. I had an umbrella, and a couple girls who I'd never seen before asked me if they could borrow it to go get some food. Against the advice of my friends I lent them the umbrella, because imagine: a world where you could ask a stranger to borrow his umbrella and he would be only too happy to help you out. And by the same token, a world where you could lend a stranger your umbrella and have it returned as a matter of course. They brought it back, naturally.

This is not a revolutionary philosophy to hold. In fact, I'm positive that I co-opted this concept essentially verbatim from some Buddhist or Hindu or New Age practice that I just can't remember at the moment. Ultimately this is just an activation of Gandhi's exhortion to "Be the change you want to see in the world," only with umbrellas and nail clippers instead of justice I guess.

But the justice thing holds! Who's never been in a situation where they need some justice but left theirs at home? Ung, I've got a lot of thoughts in my head right now that are more sophisticated and less trite than the ones I've shared in this post I promise, they're just not resolving into sentences. They have to do with mindfulness and right action and personal efficacy and stuff and it's all really good but you've gotta take my word for it, okay? Awesome, thanks.