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The Answer is Simple

#truth #life #direction #advice #amwriting

The buzz of the city amplifies your anxiety as you stare at the street signs. It’s a new place. You’ve never been here and perhaps you’re used to small town life. You want to ask someone for directions so you stand there-in the middle of the sidewalk-watching the faces as they move past you.

Their faces are cold and stoic. Each expression is carved in stone, immortalizing the “worker bee” hive mind. Finally, as if sent there just for you, an elderly woman shambles nearby. She’s bundled up in her wool coat and pink, knit hat, gazing into the windows displaying colorful clothes, flashy watches, maybe a best selling book. Her lips are softer than the chiseled-line mouths of the faces around her.

Yes, you think to yourself, this is the person I will ask for directions.

Rolling your shoulders back, you head her way, put on your best smile, and call out to her.

“Excuse me, ma’am. I’m sorry to bother you but I’m a little lost. Can you point me in the direction of the subway? I need to get uptown.”

The woman smiles and offers a small chuckle. Turning a half of an inch to her left. She raises her arm, extending her crooked finger, tipped with cotton candy nail polish, and points in the direction you came from.

“It’s over there stupid, can’t you read?”

And just like that, her smile goes from being sunny and warm, to sarcastic and full of ridicule.

The point of this little story is to point out how sometimes we let our own insecurities and fears keep us from seeing where we we need to go. We can’t see the clearly marked signs. We feel disoriented. We question our own judgement.

The direction is always easy.

“Just go north.”

“It’s right there in front of your face.”

However easy the direction seems, it doesn’t reflect how hard the path is to actually reaching your destination.

Focus on the direction, but work on the path.

It’s right in front of you . . . Dummy.

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I Need A Moment..

Skull_Bones_Coffee_Sugar_Snow_Violent_CubeMe2Sometimes when you’re in the eye of the storm you see things around you so much clearer. There’s chaos floating around, debris tumbling in the wind like leaves in winter, and noise. So much noise. It’s deafening like the roar of a lion and it makes you freeze right where you’re standing.

Once you’re in that center though, it is like reaching out with the hand of God and plucking unnecessary objects from the fray. You see everything pass by and it’s like going to a buffet. Each item is neatly placed, pleasing to the eye. They are tempting and scrumptious but in the back of your mind you argue, “This isn’t good for you. You’ll regret it if you indulge.”

This is the way life  has been for me. I was always a storm chaser. Now, I like being in the eye. I can follow the storm ..but I’m not part of the storm.

Removing drama, even if it’s not directly related to you, is sometimes a necessary evil. By its very nature, drama breeds drama and attracts it just the same. I like breathing room where I can step away from it and stay clean from its aftermath. Because believe me, there is always an aftermath. There is always a broken relationship, however big or small, that can never be quite the same.

This is what my kind of people call, “the art of detachment”. We simply turn and walk in the other direction. It’s an easy direction and some people get lost trying to follow it. It’s called, the future.

It’s easier to pull someone off the chair than for that person to help you up to where they are. When people take advantage, taint relationships, show no remorse, or gratitude and devalue your existence in their life — that is the time to release your hold. Believe me, for every hand you release, there’s another one to replace it. Save the ones that help you save them, and let go of the ones that want you to burn with them.