Impulse

Ever notice how life is a series of impulses, desires, urges, wants, dreams and hopes that are never supposed to see the light of day?  It seems to me we spend an awful lot of time thinking these thoughts that we couldn't or wouldn't dare tell anyone.  Be sensible they said, don't do what you want to do, do what you should do, what is required of you.  Enough of that crap and you stop knowing what the hell it is you want to do, or who you are for that matter.

That's a terrible feeling.  For the gullible and easily manipulated there is always the media.  Television, magazines, the internet, are more than willing to tell you what you want, just pay the price of admission and viola! Fulfillment!  For a limited time we will double your order, that's twice the Fulfillment (just pay separate processing and handling fees)!!!  Call today!

We ease ourselves into this misery as one enters a scalding bath, slowly, one toe at a time until it can no longer be felt and soon the body is totally immersed.  But the water inevitably becomes tepid, then cold and our flesh wrinkles and it is no longer enough.  We have to add more scalding water or get the hell out and do something else.

Two of the greatest decisions I made in my life came as a result of following impulse.  I saw a skateboard at a yardsale for $2 when I was 12.  My mother said no, that I would hurt myself, so I rode my bicycle back later and bought the damn thing and hid it in the basement.  I then embarked on a 25 year journey that saw me travel the United States and learn some of the most valuable lessons life has to teach as I came to know myself.  25 years man, that's longer than most marriages last.  All from a $2 purchase that I was not supposed to have.

Motorcycles were the same way.  At 16 I bought a $250 Yamaha that my parents adamantly argued against.  So began another odyssey that continues to this day and has brought me here, to your computer screen.

I didn't know at the time how those two decisions would shape my life, I just had a feeling there was something there.  Where would I be now, had I not followed those impulses?  I don't know, living up to someone else's expectations?  Dead?  In a van down by the river?  Corporate lackey? Billionaire?  Whichever possible pasts I may have eschewed through my lack of respect for duty, authority, conformity, they could not have proven as worthy as what I have known through following the siren's call of my heart.

Impulse #1

Impulse #2.  And life would never be the same.  Or normal.