11.28.2010

Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

A few weeks ago my wallet was stolen. I was out to dinner with a friend and my bag was on the stool next to me at the bar. I saw a man standing behind the stool, I reached over and touched my bag, wondered if I should move it, and then thought "Don't assume everyone is out to get you. He is clearly just making time with a lady at the bar." But the thing is, my first instinct was right. He reached into my bag and while I was still finishing my burger he was using my credit card to buy $900 worth of Jesus knows what at a CVS (most my recent theory is costly prosthetic limbs). I keep bumping into this problem, as do many of my friends, the difficulty of trusting yourself. You think someone is stealing your wallet? They probably are. You think you should cross the street to avoid a dude while your alone? You absolutely should. You know  you shouldn't continue a dicey interaction with someone? You will feel better if you didn't 
There is an existential phenomenon that seems to occur in ones mid to late 20s and lasts until probably the early 30s, also known as the return of Saturn. Everyone goes a little bonkers. Everything you hold dear is thrown into to question and life probably becomes one big, chaotic, shit show. The best advice that anyone can ever hear is that the the only thing in your way is yourself. I like to think of it as a Chinese finger trap, the more you resist, the more you think it is the things around you, the more panicked and trapped you feel. When you finally calm down you realize that it was you creating the trap entire time and it will seem so obvious. 
My hope for all of us is that we can listen to ourselves but also know when we should get out of our own goddamn way. 



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