Lessons

I am SO SICK of inspirational quotes and pinterest pics and someecards knock-offs clogging my newsfeed. They are annoying, superficial, and some of them don't even make sense! I have 30 Rumi quotes on my feed every day. I get it, it's a nice thought for the day. But a girl can only take so much sappy shit.

Example 1: What does this even MEAN?!

Example 2: This is not how someecards.com is supposed to work. Not funny, not sarcastic. This is what happens when moms take over something cool.

So, all this "Chicken Soup for the Facebooker's Soul" got me thinking about stories and quotes that have STAYING POWER. Ones that have been recurring themes in my life.
Shit I would have tattooed on my BODY, they're that important to me.

The airline industry has taught me that "the nearest exit may be behind you" and bureaucracy has taught me that you may "begin anywhere".

First off, if the nearest exit may be behind you, then when you're looking to escape you better do a quick assessment of the situation. People are just too quick to push ahead at all costs because...
*they've gone too far and can't get back
*they've dumped to much time, money, resources, heartache, etc. into the current plan
*this is the way it's always been done
*they're too ashamed to admit a mistake

And, somewhat related to the above exit strategy, you really can "begin anywhere". This saying helped give me the courage to pick up and leave a pleasant-enough but ultimately unfulfilled existence in Chicago and come out West. Once you decide to do things differently you can jump right in.
A second, and also useful interpretation of this saying is that you don't have to wait for some perfect situation to present itself to begin a change, a journey, etc. Get to it.

This next one WILL be tattooed on my body at some point. I think it sums up my life philosophy nicely:

“I must be without remorse or regrets as I am without excuse; for from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.”― Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness

Finally, the one that has been the *most* help to me in my life thus far, the narrative that is most frequently running in my brain, and the one that I wish I could BURN into the collective consciousness of adolescents everywhere, was originally told to me by a friend and mentor, Ms. Kim. She relayed the following tale in a sing-song fable kind of way during a demonstration of Native American culture I was helping her with (we had a sign language song we did, it was pretty cool if I do say so myself).
I didn't think much of it beyond the obvious, but as I grew older my world expanded, and I encountered quite a few of these folks on the path of life. I was lucky, and never took any fatal hits, but I was pretty battered and bruised before it finally clicked and I started to see this happening BEFORE I got bit...

There was a snake once who wanted to cross a river, he saw a fox and said 'will you carry me across this river?' The fox said 'If I do that, you'll bite me.' The snake replied, 'No I won't, if I did that we'd both die.' So the fox thought about and decided to carry the snake across the river. When the fox set him down on the other side of the river the snake bit the fox. The poison seeped into his veins and as the fox lay dying he questioned the snake 'why did you do that? I helped you across the river!' And slithering away, the snake said 'You knew what I was when you picked me up.' 

How much heartache could we save ourselves if we could learn to recognize the snake in our lives and just walk away?? I don't even mean bad people or those who mean you harm, though it certainly applies in that case. It could be anything, really.
If you have a friend who always takes your lighter, or a data set that has to be re-saved with specific formatting that throws off the test is run, or a tricky gas gauge, or girlfriend that never remembers to lock the car door, how can you ever really be upset when the obvious happens? You knew. And you should have acted accordingly.
As a side note, I've since learned that this story is pervasive in many forms, with variations appearing in West African, European (Aesop's Fables), and Asian folktales, and in the Panchatantra (a collection of animal fables dating back to India in the 3rd century BC). The main characters vary, with frogs, scorpions, horses, farmers, and peasants.  But the lesson is the same - you knew better.