Buyer Beware

One of life's little ironies is that the only way to save money at a sale event is not to go. The sage understands how this insight applies to other areas in life as well.
~ Yesterday's Daily Quote from The TaoWoods Center ~

More often than not, we each find ourselves in trouble because we've embarked upon a journey down the wrong path. There we are, running pall-mall down a road, not paying much attention to where we step or how fast we're moving. Before we know it, we've hit a dead end or run smack dab into a wall.

As we stumble around, we ask ourselves, "What happened? Why does my head hurt?" We reexamine the path's route, our speed or gait, and a host of other inconsequential factors. The only thing we don't analyze -- which just happens to be the source of the problem -- is that we shouldn't be on this path at all!

In my youth, this used to be a great problem for me. I'd see some objective far off in the distance, but kept choosing the wrong way to get there! My first marriage falls under this category.

The objective was love, happiness and companionship. Like most people, that's what I craved. But in my desire to get there post haste, I hitched my wagon to a horse going in the opposite direction. After about 3 years, once I realized that where I was and my preferred destination were hundreds of miles apart, I tried to figure out how I had ended up so far off-course. It took me quite awhile to realize that it was the path itself I was on and NOT the millions other unimportant factors that I kept looking at.

I finally rectified the situation by getting divorced. When I married a second time, I did it the right way for me. I married a woman (my dear Della) who was my best friend! Our deep friendship has kept us together through the natural highs and lows of any joining of two people. Passion (something due to my Asperger's that I don't have a lot of anyway) tends to ebb and flow, but an undying friendship can weather many 'a storm.

In my life, a good example of a poor road never taken is the fact that I neither partake of alcohol or drugs. Alcoholism runs strong through my family and it has befell many of those closest to me. Since this tendency to over imbibe is prevalent with many loved ones and dear friends, I decided early on to forgo the temptation altogether by not starting down that road in the first place. I decided it's better to be a square than to risk not being able to control my appetites.