The little voice inside your head. I call mine Bob. I don't really know why, especially because it's a girl voice, but whatever, I can call it whatever I want. You may be surprised to know that Bob is very loud. When I was younger, Bob had to practically scream to be heard. I was very willful and stubborn back then. I made a lot of rash decisions in the heat of the moment and for reasons that had nothing at all to do with what was BEST. Instead, they most often were based on what I most wanted. A laptop computer when I was 20, even though I lived at home, and only went to school part time? Absolutely. And that bad boy better cost like three grand. New car? Yep. Gotta have it. No, not that one, I want the purple one with the stick shift and the sunroof. So what if I don't know how to drive a stick? Trips, clothes, you name it. Bob would also try very hard to get my attention when I was about to do something emotionally foolish as well. And more often than not, I ignored that bastard and did what I wanted to do, with mixed results.
As I get older, Bob doesn't have to yell quite so loud. I'm less impulsive. Don't get me wrong, when I want something, I still can be pretty stubborn. That said, I'm much more selective about what is worth standing my ground for. Plus, I listen to Bob now. When Bob says...you know, you really shouldn't buy those shoes, you don[t have anything to wear them with and you could save that money... listen. Most of the time. When I am about to say something to my mom that might be in the heat of an argument, I may not say it. If I do, I can usually apologize much more quickly. So...when Bob started screaming at me a bit ago, why didn't I listen?
Say for example, someone places an apple and a piece of cake before you, and you are hungry, Bob will probably tell you to eat the apple. Either way, you are hungry, and food satisfies you. But - say you are hungry, and the only thing in front of you is this perfect pastry. It's perfect. Your favorite flavor, beautiful to look at, but it's behind a pane of glass, and tied to a brick. There is no other option. You can try to get at it. But there's Bob, telling you that it's more trouble than it's worth, you probably won't be able to get at it anyway. "Even if you do get at it," says Bob, "it's REALLY bad for you. You can't see this, but the filling will make you sick. I'm telling you..STAY AWAY from the pastry." But you are hungry...you haven't eaten in a while, and you like pastries, and it looks heavenly. There's Bob.."I'm telling you. You really do NOT want to eat that. It's going to go right to your hips, and you will have to work to get rid of it for a long time. Better to just ignore it, and soon a salad or something will show up".
I'd like to say, that as a mature adult, I ignored the pastry. But I didn't. Even though every cell in my body has been telling me for months that I should keep walking, don't even LOOK at the pastry. Don't pick the pastry up. Don't try to take the pastry home. I tried to claw my way through the glass and eat the fucking pastry. Sure enough...Bob was right.
While this could easily truly be about apples and pastries, it's actually a metaphor for something I am dealing with in my life. It's only one of the challenges I am juggling right now, but it's the one that is causing the most immediate and pronounced pain. I let the pretty display distract me from the fact that inside, it's just a fatty, high calorie mess, sure to make me feel worse about eating it than I did when I was just hungry. And now here I am, knowing that not only was I unable to break through the glass, the pastry still sits there, beckoning, and I have to walk away from it. I have to force myself to keep thinking how I really don't even want it. Even though it may go on sale. The glass my come down. Hell, someone might buy the thing and put it on my desk. I can not eat it. Bob was right. It is toxic.
I'm still hungry. It could take a while for something nutritious to come my way. When it does, it probably won't be as pretty as the pastry. It might, but either way, it will be all filled with vegetables and vitamins, and that's the important part. It will feed my hunger AND nourish my body. I just have to be patient.
Bob, if you know so much...tell me how to get rid of the image of the pastry!!!!
