A Penny for the Old Guy

I spend a lot of time thinking about impractical stuff. I’m not often losing sleep about what to make for dinner or cleaning my truck, things that would be really useful. For me, thinking is mostly in the clouds, and I’m losing sleep because of it right now.

I’ve spent years trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing with my life, what path I’m supposed to be following. Under the assumption that discovering my direction will lead to greater peace, but also the presumption that the path I’m on now is somehow the wrong one, I’ve been chipping away at my happiness for decades. But it dawned on me yesterday during a walk in the forest that maybe, just maybe, I’m on the path I’m supposed to be on, even if it isn’t a path at all. I know, I sound like a hippy.

The theory is that the right path isn’t a direction or a way, it isn’t something you do or something that happens outward. The right path is a frame of mind, a moment of knowing that things are right with you, that the annoying asshat stopping in the middle of the street in front of your car doesn’t necessarily have to shit on your experience. These external things don’t have to inform your groove unless you let them.

So instead of looking for direction or trying to figure out what to do next or reasoning why you feel like you don’t fit in, just ride it out like Colonel Kurtz, cool as a cucumber when the firestorm hits. Take it standing up reciting the god damned Hollow Men. And if you’re still standing when it’s over, dust yourself off and saunter on because you own this mofo and you’re untouchable.