Some time ago I read about a scientific research. The title of that news article was something like "conscientious and neurotic personality traits and life expectancy".

I went to the actual article and was surprised that they had not meant what I expected. I had read the title "neurotically conscientious traits and life expectancy", but in the article they said that conscientious people live longer and neurotic people live a shorter time.

I am neurotically conscientious, so do I live longer or a shorter time?

When I was drinking in parks, no one would have pointed at me and said, "There you see a really conscientious person". But in the last few years I have found this extremely conscientious trait in me and realized that it is nothing new: when I was a little schoolboy, I was very conscientious and always did my homework to a T. Then the puberty came with its conflicts and many things changed.

Why do I mention this? Because this trait irritates me, it can be tiring: I am excessively meticulous, almost to the obsessive compulsive disorder. No, not in matters of indifference -- there I can be a slob and a sluggard -- but in those things that are important to me.