Listen to Jim’s 3-minute audio podcast: https://youtu.be/tIWhKwFiE3E
or read his tale below…
HUNKERING DOWN WITHIN THE SAFE ROOM
You need a password in order to enter my Safe Room.
Being of sound mind and unsound body, I retain this password for my eyes only.
The Safe Room is the only place where I can retreat from the media gnats and surly siegers that constantly pound away at what attention span I can muster at any moment.
Even though I can cocoon myself when the world overbears itself, there is one point of vulnerability. My Safe Room has a large shadeless window.
The gnats and trolls and snarkies and stormers and pesties anxiously await my exit from safe haven to the world outside, ready to pounce the moment I show myself. I keep them at bay as much as inhumanly possible.
How do I know these annoying, sometimes mean-spirited critters are anxious to derail me? Well, I can see them outside that danged picture-window.
Within my Safe Room, I can examine and digest and prepare whatever shape I would like to present to the world. I can try my best to tamp down and control those unlikable primal irrational hair-trigger responses that seem to be built into me. I can remind myself that, seeing as how I am ensnared by the reality of being human, being on Earth, being surrounded by people who are also concurrently ensnared, I can at least spend my remaining time doing worthwhile things.
I have this deep-seated and frustrating desire to Be Worthwhile.
The sign that floats above me in plain view would make a good bumper sticker. The sign says:
BE WORTHWHILE
So, how do I protect myself from the thousand and one distractions designed to manipulate me, exploit me, win me over, alienate me—those thousand and one attempts to empty my wallet or capture my vote or tamp down my resistance to becoming part of a lemming posse?
How do I make up my own mind? How do I behave like the independent entity I know myself to be?
A glance outside the Safe Room window provides all the motivation I require.
I don my protective Safe Garb, focus on the floating bumper sticker, take a deep breath, and exit the room, ready to wend my own way, ready to avoid all speed bumps and barriers and attackers, ready to seek the company of people who are kind and unselfish, ready to dismiss the exploiters, ready to assist the meek.
Ready to become worthwhile
© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast