Buckle Up!

Column 1	Column 2
Conscious Rational Safe Predictable Dormant Potential	Unconscious Instinctual /intuitive Unsafe Unpredictable Potential

Your mind can break you but choices make you.

The inspiration for the post came to me on Monday, the ideas flowed once again, and then less than 24 hours later, I came face-to-face with a defining choice.

I am glad you chose to read.  I am excited to write.

On Monday I lay (this is an odd past tense verb) on the table at the doctors office waiting for him to enter the room.  During the gap I started thinking, what will I do if when I get hired in both Nairobi and Jakarta; my current top two choices.  I contemplated and engaged in the mind-game.  The game where your rational mind competes with your intuitive mind.  One city is rational, the other, intuitive.  With nothing decided, the doctor entered the room. He placed his hands on my feet and took a long, hard sigh.  “What are you trying to choose between?”  He asked. 

He asked me to sit up and among other tidbits of conversation, he questioned, “What is it that you want?”  My answer was a big crock of shit; unacceptable to both of us.  “What is it that you want?” 

“I don’t know.”  I lied.  I knew full well, but I will let Ben Harper add melody to the text.

 He (my doctor, not Ben Harper) was not the only person to give me the same advice this year.  He told me to ask God, and then to get it.  He reminded me that it’s not up to destiny, but that it’s my choice.  These are the words I wrote to my life coach in April.

I feel like I lived for a few years in a semi-dream world.  I wasn’t living a true and authentic life. I have been frustrated both personally and professionally, and neither aspect of my life has been emotionally healthy.  I feel like I was waiting for life to just happen, instead of taking a more proactive approach.

Rendered powerless, a feather blowing about aimlessly, only to land, at the mercy of the wind. Rendered powerless by choice. 

This is how Tuesday unfolded.  I woke up early to go for a long run.  I left the house, dialed up my Ipod and cranked my tunes.  I left the house and remembered the advice given to me the day before; about asking God.  I went back inside and instead of asking for favors, I found myself with loads to be thankful for.  After a stream of gratitude, I asked for my body to take me for a long run.  After a 19-year hiatus, God was pretty forgiving and he didn’t hold a grudge.  

I walked down stairs and floated out the front gate.  But there in front of me was an old lady who looked to be in her mid sixties.  I could be over-estimating because her face was dark and wrinkled from the sun, her shirt, dirty and torn, and her shoes; I couldn’t tell if she was wearing any because her pants were around her ankles.  She was totally exposed, but she wasn’t going to the bathroom; instead, she was touching herself in a way that left little for interpretation.  She didn’t care that the streets where crawling with people and that they were all looking.  I started to walk away but I couldn’t help but to look back.  Each time I did, I felt the pull.  So I turned and started walking back.

There was another elderly woman who lives in my building close to me so I asked her, “do you think she needs help?”  Totally lame.  She responded with my own conscious, rational, and safe thoughts, “yes, but she’s crazy, you can’t help her.  If you give her money, she will go buy alcohol.  She needs psychiatric help.”  She may as well have been wearing a t-shirt that said, ASK ME IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO OPERATE AS A COLUMN 1  (only we would get it).

Then I acted from column one.  I went to ask the doorman what he thought.  What was I doing?  Bringing the problem to someone else instead of being an active participant in helping.  As I opened the door to the building, she stood up and pulled her pants up.  The elderly lady entered the building and whispered, “Thank God!”  She went inside. 

I set off for my run.  Time for analysis.  Did I do the right thing?  No.  Did I do the wrong thing? No.  I took the passenger seat, a passive position in life, and I realized that. 

I e-mailed Narayanan Krishnan last week to get more information about what he does in India.  I wondered for a week if I could do what he does, to look inside people’s souls and help those in need.  Indeed, it takes a lot of courage.  I imagined myself going inside, getting a bucket and a towel, and offering to give this old woman some loving care.  Yes, she needed help.  And what was I afraid of?  That people might look at me funny, that she might be aggressive with me? Really, I am humbled to swallow that this reality, these fears, stopped me from doing the right thing.  I didn’t make the wrong choice, but I didn’t make the right one.  I didn’t take a proactive role in defining who I am, instead I asked around, looked for reinforcements, and waited until the problem corrected itself; or at least until it was bandaged up.  The problem still exists.

I ran 36km.  I had a lot of time to think; a lot of time to feel beyond the aches in my bones and fatigue in my muscles.

I got home, showered, and tested my legs.  They were just walk-able, so I set off to get some groceries.  As I hobbled out the front gate, there in front of me, in the exact same spot was a younger woman, with a small boy.  She looked hopeless, tired and she had little in her voice to beg.  I try to avoid giving money for the reality that I fear supporting a drug or alcohol problem.  I prefer to give food.  I set off for my groceries and made sure I got food for this young woman.  I grabbed some Yakisoba and had it wrapped. 

When I approached her to ask if she wanted some food, she extended her arms and graciously accepted.  The same elderly woman from earlier on in the day was again on the sidewalk.  She put her groceries down and looked at me, “I will go to the bakery and get her some bread.”  Off she went.  I came up to the 9^th floor and gazed down at the girl.  Within a few seconds, a man walked by with two grocery bags.  He paused a few steps past the girl, rummaged through his grocery bag and took something out.  He handed it to her.  Shortly after, passing in the opposite direction, a man emptied the coins from his wallet and gave them to her.  The elderly lady returned and offered the bag of bread.  She stayed for a short time and talked with the girl.  I really wish I knew what she said.  As I boxed up the Yakisoba, I wondered what words of encouragement I could muster up.  “Your son has a better chance in life if he goes to school.”  “Can you read?”  (Presuming she can’t) “You can learn.”  What stopped me was the fear that my words might not have an impact.  Column 1; my silence pretty much guaranteed just that, NO IMPACT. 

We make thousands of choices every day.  We get to rewire, rewrite, refresh and restart every second.  We have chance after chance after chance to point ourselves in the direction of our dreams. But what stops us?  Fear.  How often you stop and think about the fact that everything you do matters?  It does.  I once heard someone say that you are where you are because you got yourself there.  Try that hat on for a while.  Sit with it.  Even if you don’t believe it, pretend that you do.  Put the pieces of your life where they belong instead of believing you are at the mercy of destiny, a feather if you will.

Try being amazing; it’s not easy, hell no.  And failure lurks around every corner.  The only way that you can be amazing however is to be amazing.  Just like the only way to do the right thing, is to do the right thing.  You are not who you think you are, you are what you repeatedly do. 

May as well take the driver’s seat!