Set Your Mind Free: Imagine the worst

I just received a comment from a roving reader, suggesting my blog was very interesting and could be very popular but my lackluster moderation left a lot to be desired. If I didn't change my behavior (such as posting on a whim without consistency or discipline) I’d never make any money. 

Well, first of all---in case the robot didn’t notice my disclaimer, this blog will never make money as long as I have anything to do about it. Second of all, DUH. As though I didn’t know infrequent posting would hinder my PPR: Potential Popularity Rating. Not calling people back on the phone or returning emails tends to put a damper on relationships too, so apologies to anyone in cyberspace who might be mad at me for placing a call and then ignoring my readers. Whom I care about very much. You have gifted me in more ways than you know. I’m almost interested in my opinions now.

I’d love to post more stories about my fabulously entertaining life in NarcVille and one day, I’ll do that. Right now, I am prioritizing the website I’ve threatened to create for nigh on five years. Each time I get close to going “live”, sumthin’ happens. Sumthin’ lousy. Sumthin’ traumatic. I have lost friends and made enemies over non-profit websites that didn't even exist. It’s traumatic for a woman who prefers people to plus signs, karma numbers, and popularity graphs. I announce my plans, lose friends, and go through a self-blaming process like most people do when they're rejected and then, a little voice whispers in my ear so comfortingly, so sweetly, “You aren't ready yet and that’s why there’s a roadblock. When the time is right, everything will fall into place.”

Then I breathe rapidly, shallowly, and noisily while thumbing through goal-oriented, Think Your Way Rich books compelling me to Buck Up because the only things worth doing in life must, of necessity, challenge an Earth student’s fortitude. At least to those woo-woo writers I confess to reading, a hefty roadblock is the Universe’s way of testing your mettle. How serious are you? Do you really think you can hit the wall and survive; or, are you thinking like a weak, negativistic, and victimize-ie loser? Gosh, what could be worse than thinking like a victim? Thinking like a narcissist IS the fashion of the day: “I can do it! I am great! Nobody and no thing will get in my way! God and Angels and Celestial Beings have joined forces in  giving me what I want ‘cuz I am just so very very special! Nothing will stop me---not even my old wife crying in the bedroom ‘cuz Hera and Zeus decided it was time to send me the soulmate I really deserved!" 

I make myself laugh after several rounds of hand wringing and anxious 2:00 am anxiety attacks and then it’s time to take stock of reality. Find my balance. Look for my homeostasis and no, I’m not dating. 

Amidst the Go-Go hype of positive thinking and the No-No tripe of mystical spirits saying, “it’s time to back off, lay low, do nothing, and grow”, there’s a balance. It’s easy for me to swing one way or the other. Extremism, in my family, is as natural and normal as "Round-up Ready sugar beet seed". 

When I find myself going paralytic, I let my mind escape, preparing for disasters that will never happen. My train of thought goes like this: “WHAT IF the roof on my house catches on fire and the postman delivers a bomb and my neighbor sues me for parking my car to close to her property line and my nephew decides to run away to Alaska or some other fearsome foreign country and my daughter tells me she’s quitting her job to be a pole dancer and my sister retires early to stay home with me and we have an earthquake like the one we survived in 1989 or a volcano like the one we survived when Mt. St. Helens erupted or the French rainfall we walked in after Chernobyl or…what else? O yes. WHAT IF the X  calls and says he has a horrible disease that cut off both his legs and both his arms and his girlfriend abandoned him and now he needs to come home and since his x-girlfriend won't have anywhere to go after their ugly break-up, can she move in, too?” and then, my train of thought ends in gut-rollicking humor which always, always, grounds me in reality. 

My imagination is a lovely and terrible place. But if unforeseen disasters should preempt the launching of my new site, what's to worry? A woman can  always pick up where she left off because, or so the wise ones tell us, "Everything  unfolds exactly as it should.”

Love to all,

CZ