e. (hard-core drugs); rather she finds what she may think of an attempt to find a happy median. Similarly, this young girl is saddened by the choices she makes. "At boarding school, everyone gets depressed" (Minot 1010). The narrator has made a conscious decision to sleep around and it haunts her as a result. It's not to say that she is becoming an inferior person for it, it just means that her moral values may be inflicted by her decision-making. It wouldn't be fair if her unhappiness was the downfall to her personal achievements. .
Furthermore, analyzing a situation can make personal achievements more likely to happen. Perhaps by rationalizing a decision, a person could have a positive outcome. It's like "Sammy;" he has an analytical persona that drives him to make a decision about quitting his job. At first, he quits in search of acceptance by the girls, especially "Queenie". When he realizes that the girls aren't waiting around for him and the fact that they may not have even heard him quit gives him a feeling of stupidity, but at least he realizes that he made his decisions for the right reasons. "[ ] and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter" (Updike 1347). Sammy realizes the trouble he caused himself, and now he would have plenty of time to think about his well-chosen decision of quitting his job at A&P as well as time to dream about "Queenie". .
Unlike Sammy, the narrator in "Lust" doesn't make decisions based upon a reasonable or valid motive. It would be safe to call the narrator illogical with her ideals. It is understood that fear, depression and solitude can make a person act illogically, but there are alternatives rather than acting unreasonably. For example, this girl put herself in a predicament when a guy merely talked to her; "Or it"d be, trying to be reasonable, in a regular voice, "Listen, I just want to have a good time.