For Better or Worser

For better or worse, I say “for better or worse” a lot. Like, a lot a lot. It should probably be the title of my yet to be written memoir, because in addition to the fact that I say it all the time, it also sums up how I look at most situations in life. Things happen, and they tend to have both good and bad consequences. For example, I could say, “My parents are divorced… for better or worse”. Maybe it’s a result of my being a middle child, or a Virgo, or who knows… but I believe that all events that occur in life have both pros and cons; an upside and a downside. For better or worse.

Here are several examples that come to mind right now:

For better or worse, this is the first blog entry I’ve written in a long while.

For better or worse, it’s likely going to be an El Nino year.

For better or worse, I ate too much Korean BBQ last night.

For better or worse, I am not employed right now, which gives me time to write this.

For better or worse, I copied and pasted “For better or worse,” so that I don’t have to type it every time.

For better or worse, some people may not be reading “For better or worse” every time, but just skipping over it to get to the meat of the sentence. This is the meat of the sentence, for better or worse.

For better or worse, I had a lot of coffee this morning, and that likely resulted in this entry.
For better or worse, I hate when people say, "For better or worst."

I used to always end sentences with punctuation inside the quotation marks, but I’ve recently been told not to do it that way, so for better or worse, I am now confused.

For better or worse, the previous example was a variation of the established structure.

For bettor or worse, I just forgot to copy and paste “for better or worse,” and as a result I spelled “better” incorrectly, but for the sake of this example being unique I decided not to fix it.

For better or worse, Sea World.

For better or worse, this is my last example.

While I've always considered it to be a healthy approach to life, there may also be a defeatist element to it, too. Right? Like, if something really great happens, like if I were to say, “Oprah just gave me a brand new car!” I might immediately follow that up with, “For better or worse, because now my insurance is going to go up, and this car doesn’t get as good gas mileage as my old car.”

It’s not necessarily a Debbie-Downer effect so much as it is - not so subconsciously - my way of neutralizing something positive so that I can maintain a yin and yang viewpoint of the universe; a seemingly healthy defense mechanism. But maybe this outlook is not as healthy as I like to think. Maybe it prevents me from fully relishing in my victories, and conversely, it also prevents me from fully absorbing my defeats. In other words: not getting the most of out life. But damnit, I love saying it... I'll have to think about it some more, but I'm glad I brought this to my attention, and yours.

On that note, I think I'll stop here for now. And notice what I'm not saying as my last sentence. Clue: It rhymes with more getter door purse. Maybe I'll just start saying that from now on...