Cool new digs.
It's nice to come on board.

Floating through turmoil and chaos. No sense of power just yet...too soon for that. Don't we all feel this way? Is it really so unique; so original to think we're isolated in this... fog? I think that's what it must be, for we do have a sense of isolation, but really we're simply in a cloud of confusion with millions of others feeling exactly the same way, yet we can't see each other. We only feel our own lingering pain and struggle to get through yet another step with limited visibility.

My sense is that one of two things can truly guide any one of us; hope or fear.

Hope can tell us all kinds of pretty things, fluff our aura, lift us above the clammy reality of a bad day. It's a rather useful tool in the moment. It grows the longer and more determinedly we use it, however, it will quickly die when faced too often or frequently with it's nemesis; fear.

There's a squirrelly monster. Every bad design flaw we see in ourselves becomes magnified by it; every confidence crushed when fear is pondered seriously for any length of time. It consumes us in the worst of times and, depending on our level of trauma, in the best of times as well. It's the temptation in every healthy place we hang out...the Haagen Das store 2 steps from the gym; the bed that shows us it's refuge just before we're supposed to meet up with our friend, workout partner, blind date...

To banish it completely seems impossible, yet we must, every day strive to CHOOSE hope over fear or it takes us down and extends our pain.

In the midst of the chaos; the turmoil I find it vital to remember that these are not the dragons... It's fear that is the dragon I must slay as I move through another day wandering the territory of hope...