The Gateless Gate

I always have trouble with ent vs ant. I think a lot of people do. I know it's one or the other, but can't remembe rwhich. It's no indicator of a LTM problem in my opinion. I think, in my case, that it has something to do with opposites; either/or situations, where I know the answer is "either this" "or that". For some reason these situations stump me. This has interfered in my school work and also in my employment. I am faced with an option and must make a choice about a certain rule or procedure using one of two alternatives. I know what the alternatives are but can't associate them with the procedure.

A better way to explain it - I have to push a certain button in order to bring about a certain desired result. I have to choose between the red button or the green button. If I push the wrong button all hell will break loose.  If I push the right button everything will be groovy. I can't remember what button to push.  Is it red or is it green? Anxiety and indecision. Can't go back and ask the boss or the teacher, he or she has already told me which button to push 100 times.  It makes me appear incompetent.  Or is it incompetant?  It makes me hesitant (or is it hesitent?) to make decisions. 

I know my left hand from my right. But when I'm looking at my reflection in the mirror I just can't fathom how it works. There I am, facing my self, saluting myself with my right hand.  But if I was really facing myself, my right hand would be on the other side.  So what's up with that?  I know up from down even when I'm standing on my head.  But when I imagine myself standing on the surface of the planet Earth and taking a stroll around the circumferance via the prime meridian, things get a little confusing.  The sky is all around me, even when it's beneath me, so up and down are one and the same.  I wonder if this is what John Lennon was thinking when he wrote "Imagine".  Another thing that bothers me, confuses me, stumps me:  The period that I put after the parenthesis on the previous sentence.  Should I have put it before the parenthesis? I know it's either before or after, but no matter how many times I look in up in my little punctuation book - it never sinks in. 

The solution to the above is to keep a little note book and write thoseeither/or button pushing rules down for quick and easy reference. Yeah,it's a drag. But it's better than pushing the wrong button.