How Your Cracked iPhone Screen Is Actually A Metaphor For Your Life

Each morning, I’m awoken to the sound of the same obnoxious iPhone ringtone.

This typically needs to happen, like, six or seven times before I actually take any action – thus, I set an alarm for 6 am and 6:05, 6:10, 6:15 and every other interval of five as such, successively until 6:40, when I finally muster up the ambition to leave bed.

And before I leave bed, I’ll always take a glance at the list of push notifications that accumulated over the course of the night before.

It’s usually not too long, but nevertheless, I always find myself squinting at the cracked screen of my iPhone 5, hoping for the best.

Yeah, my screen is cracked. It doesn’t bother me, really. Sure, I know it’s not perfect. I know it could be better, but it’s natural – like a big nose, that fits the face.

I don’t see it as crude; I see it as charming, but rebellious at the same time. It’s got that hey-I-have-nice-things-and-don’t-give-f*cks-about-their-maintenance type of feel to it.

While my cracked iPhone screen certainly isn’t ideal by any stretch of the imagination, I can never complain for too long.

I mean, there are people who have it a lot worse than I do. And, in many ways, my cracked iPhone screen is representative of my life.

I’d be lying if I said my life was “crack free.” In fact, there are numerous aspects of my existence that resemble Brownsville, during the Reagan era, but I always manage to keep my head above water and keep floating on.

If you have a cracked phone screen like I do, you will come to discover that your cracked phone says a lot about how you live your life:

You get by, but not without some struggling.

Sure, parts of the screen are completely shattered, but the phone works, right? You can make calls, you can tweet tweets, you can lurk on Instagram (albeit, less swiftly), you can do all the things you could if the screen was unscathed. So why change?

That’s how you live, too. You understand there are parts of your personal upkeep and lifestyle in general you could improve, but you get by. You always have.

In high school, you were the infamous “nap-in-class” guy, but you made it into college, right? Missed a few classes in college too, but your diploma is hanging up in your bedroom, isn't it?

You, much like your cracked phone screen, “do the trick,” as they say. Of course, there are ways to better yourself today, but that trip to the Verizon bodega never sounds all too inviting, and neither does writing up a cover letter or doing an hour of cardio.

So, you're good for now. So am I.

You know that at times, the world can be painful.

Yeah, when you scroll through my Twitter timeline too quickly, you might dice up your finger a bit on the jagged fiberglass. This might be painful, but you know sometimes life is painful.

And these twinges of pain remind you to ease ahead with caution because you can never be too hasty with anything in life – and scrolling through social media feeds is certainly not the exception.

With that said, when you handle things with care and take your time, you realize you can avoid certain painful situations.

You’re not afraid of diving right into things.

The same way you love to wander your way through life, your phone enjoys wandering too, usually out of your pocket, face first onto the sidewalk.

Your phone screen is probably cracked because you understand sh*t can’t stay perfect forever – and trying to keep things in such a fashion is a worthless cause.

If it takes a few cracks on the side of your screen to remind you this, then so be it. At least you're not neurotic about every false move you might make.

With that said, you could definitely take better care of your phones. You're reckless at times, especially under the influence of liquor, and you know you should try and keep your wits about you.

You swear you try, but sh*t always winds up in pieces.

You can sometimes be difficult to read.

Both you and your phone are very difficult to read – at least that’s what you've been told. People will often mistake you for being “mysterious,” but in reality, there’s no mystery to be solved.

You're lazy, at times – kind of moody, at all times – so, yeah, I guess you can be difficult to read, but that’s only because your disposition depends largely on how tired you are.

Your phone, too, is tough to make sense of, albeit for entirely different reasons -- the first one being the gash that resembles an oak tree in the dead of winter chilling dead center on your screen.

Sometimes you'll wake up and throw shorts on, only to realize the weather app didn’t read 70 degrees but 40, and end up shivering your ass on over to the deli in distaste.

You only spend money on the bare essentials.

In life, common knowledge will presume that those willing to shell out the most bank for sh*t usually come away with the finer things.

You know your phone is cracked, and you know you could get it fixed, but that requires like $120 – and you also know that money doesn’t grow on trees.

The way you see it, you could call an Uber every morning, for $20 a ride and bypass the whole subway fiasco as well, but rent’s almost due, and quite frankly, you'd rather eat lunch.

Naturally, the cracked screen isn’t superior to the non-cracked screen; you know this, but it’s cheaper than paying for a new one, and that’s why you're onboard.

When you're a bit more fiscally stable, don't worry, you'll handle the screen situation. Tomorrow or something. And that's usually how you attack most of your issues.