Footprints

A crisis of conscience and a conflict of heart. How do you make the decision of which is right? And once the decision is made, how do you heal the wound that is left behind?

Footsteps on your heart are the marks of those who have made an impression on you that last long after they're gone. This could happen from a person who you met in a bar dressed up for Halloween. It could be a loved one who seemed to only care about you when they needed someone's help. It could be from a treasured teacher who cheered you on, even when their own lives seemed worthless and bleak to them.

For all of the people that make up a life, whether they are a vocal part in a chorus of good experience, the out of tune tenor that is lying drunk under the table or the lead soprano who is always mysteriously and conspicuously absent; they represent the whole. "No man is an island."(John Donne)

Even people who are, for all intents and purposes, a hermit; they are a sum of their environment and the cards that they were dealt upon birth. If you play your cards right, you can sometimes find the one person who makes this complex and sometimes frightening life worth living. Intelligence, tempered with heart and graded by wisdom gleaned from experience is the reward for a well lived life.

I've often mentioned my view of life as it relates to a choose your own adventure book. There are crossroads in life, as in these stories, where one must decide if they're on the correct path, or if they should "slay the bear." Often enough, it is these instances that define who we appear to be in the eyes of others. Are we Good people? Bad people? Trustworthy or Foolish? Are we Brave? Afraid? Or are we Hesitant because we fear being hurt again?

Are we doomed to be a certain way, through an accident of birth? Or, are we a combined product of these predetermined factors and the lives that we live as a result? There are shades of grey in every decision and in every life. Wounds we've carried from decisions and events in our past color the paths we choose down the line and, I believe, make us better people for it.

Ultimately, we are our own worst enemies when it comes to fruitful decisions. Do we stay on the well worn path that leads down to the well known road or do we push through the harder path, with the possibility of danger, hurt and rejection, for the promise of a better possible future? I know which one I prefer. But then, my heart is shaped a little differently from yours... ;)