The Road Less Traveled has Weeds and Thorns

Each day I wake up, face the day and begin.

Each day, I satisfy the pain whispering in my stomach and I walk out into a world filled with hard surfaces, with sharp objects and angry people. Each day I avoid these things.

It's like best hours of my everyday is spent giving my best effort to avoid pain. That's it really. You try to have times that feel good, but for the most part we're drowsily pacing through the day with the sole mission of avoiding pain.

At work, you make sacrifices given the nature of your job, but pretty much, all we're doing is biding our time, avoiding pain.

It's understandable, of course. Pain hurts for a reason; generally-speaking it's our biological way of saying something is wrong, a situation needs remedying, but I think we're missing out sometimes by sterilizing every situation. I think we're missing out on living.

I'm not pointing the finger, arguably I'm the best/worst case study in awkward-situation avoidance. Most of the time I'd prefer to pretend a high-school peer doesn't exist than talk to him/her doing the old "what's new with you" song and dance. But I'm realizing that in most situations, I'm missing out on so much because I'm choosing the road-most traveled.

So now, as a sort of personal experiment, I'm going to agree to almost every reasonable invitation I usually defer. I'm going to talk to people I normally wouldn't, I'm going to make plans and keep them, I'm going to honor people by telling them exactly what I'm thinking rather than stepping around an issue. I'm going to engage in conflicts, I'm going to confront people and allow myself to be confronted.

I'm going to apologize.

I'm going to get hurt.

Because I believe that our stories are better told with a straight face. I believe the our rising action needs conflict, and the greater the conflict the greater the resolution.

I believe the best songs are ones that combine minor chords and major chords.

I believe in a better story, and I believe God wants us to breathe deeply.