"Get Up!"
How often do we set ourselves up for failure? Disappointment? Heartache? Without even knowing it, we walk around in our lives, half asleep....or half awake....unaware of the consequences of our choices until we find ourselves asking "Did I do that?".
I look around me, everyday, I see 'you'. On the sidewalks, shopping the malls, driving the cars, buying the fancy clothes, eating at the best, or the worst restaurants, working out, eating tofu burgers, eating real burgers, building condominium complexes and high rise office buildings where the deer and the antelope used to play. I see you sitting on the park benches feeding the pigeons, silently contemplating the meaninglessness of your life...wondering in silent desperation "What in Sam Hill happened to me? Who am I? Is this all there is left? Can't be. What was the point?"
But you're still shopping, feeding, walking, driving, eating and building. Still whispering about your neighbor behind his back, still judging the one who took the road less traveled, still caught in the rat race, climbing the corporate latter only to find out that it can be just as empty there at the top as it is on that first rung. You're still stuffing the voids of your heart and your life with inanimate objects, and goals that fulfill the illusions of 'life'....trying to catch a glimpse of happiness before it dashes by you, before the mundane sets in again. Some of you will still try to wash down the ordinary with gallons of your favorite brandy....or beer....some of you will suffocate it with your cigarettes....your weed....or whatever vile powder is currently being inhaled into the nostrils of the ones who are convinced they've found the way out. "We can hide from it." "We can pretend it doesn't exist." "This will make it funner, better, bigger, faster, stronger....until it doesn't anymore." "Oh yeah, the pain will disappear as soon as this needle is driven into this here vein."
You stay in unhealthy relationships because it's the "right" thing to do. Has anyone yet stopped to ask "Right for whom?" I'm not talking about in terms of abusive partners. That should be a given, get the hell out. I'm talking about those of you who remain in relationships that are nearly devoid of any emotional or spiritual content. Do you realize your living in a vacuum? Do you feel the life force being drained from your body? Do you look around you and feel as though you're living a dream....a horribly ordinary, dispassionate, dream?
You’ve lost yourselves in the details. In the routines. The verbiage of the "how are you's?" the "Thanks you's" and all the rest of the small talk you engage in every single day.
What's your passion? Your purpose? Your motivation for getting up every morning? If you say "for oatmeal and flavored mocha latte." You've got it pretty bad. Unless you're willing to die for something my friend, then you're already half dead.
So, some of you eat to run, hide and conceal. I wonder if you know what you are running from? You get fat. Clog your arteries, and sit on the sofa 4 hours a night watching Cagne and Lacey rerun's and holding your bowel movements until it hurts. Then, when your HMO denies your coverage for gastric bypass surgery, you get mad. Irate is truly a better descriptive here. You call the insurance company and you bitch "Why won't you pay for my gastric bypass surgery? Why did you deny it? I need the help, I am unhealthy, and I am morbidly obese. I have diabetes and high blood pressure. I need this surgery and I don't understand why you people won't pay for it! I pay good money for my insurance! You have no right to deny me coverage for this surgery!" "If you don't pony up the dough, you'll be hearing from my Attorney!"
Ummm....Pssttt....c'mere....yeah, you there....ok, are you paying very close attention?? Really?? Good. WHY DON'T YOU HELP YOURSELF! USE THE MONEY TO BUY A TREADMILL AND SOME TRAIL MIX! HAVE YOU CONSIDERED GETTING OFF YOUR SOFA, SHOOTING YOUR TELEVISION, AND PERHAPS TAKING A WALK TO SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN THE REFIGERATOR? Unless you have a severe, debilitating condition that prohibits you from standing, walking, or moving any of the major muscle groups in your body OR an illness that forces you to stuff yourself full of Ring Dings and Pringles--there are NO EXCUSES to ever allow yourself to get so overwhelming obese that surgery becomes your only hope!
Okay, so it's easy to blame everyone else for our 'troubles'. It feels better to put the burden of fixing us on someone else….. We all do it. I have been guilty of it myself, on occasion. But there comes a time when you have to realize that your shit is YOUR shit. Even if someone else helped drag you knee deep into it, and left you there for dead, without a scrap of Charmin, and no paddle, it's still your mess. Clean it up! You allowed yourself to sink to the bottom. Maybe not intentionally, but yeah, you played a key role, trust me on this one.
Get Up! Move it! Unless of course you like the stench down there in the bowels of your life....Because no one is going to do it for you. Nope. Oh sure, some kind folks will offer their assistance, their advice--but you must know, they have their own agendas. Ultimately it is up to you to grab hold of the remains of that rope, and climb like the dickens back to where the air is fresher. It won't be easy. The rope is slick with the crud of your choices. Keep climbing. It won't be quick. The rope is long and frayed and twisted. Ascend further. But don't forget to look around on your way up...look around and remember what it was along the way that caused your rapid descent. And then, DO THE OPPOSITE.
You'll get to the top again. Eventually, and with a little fortitude you will do it. When you do, the air will smell sweet, familiar. Breathe in--but not out. Instead, on the exhale, let go of the guilt of your choices. Release the angers, frustrations, hurts, regrets, pains and sorrows. Forgive, forgive, forgive--yourself above all else. Go on and create the life you have been cursing others for having. However, do not abandon your existing responsibilities…simply look at them in a new light. Incorporate your dreams into your reality. Be who you were meant to be. Bring light into every situation. Love like there is no tomorrow. Imagine? Someday, there won't be.
~Alex Marie © copyright 2003-2004
