If I sit with it long enough, it usually shows up. A blinking cursor slowly starts pushing letters to its left, a slow exhaust of word fumes of something bigger, hopefully. Sometimes really big. Sometimes gentle reminders. Sometimes close to meaningless. Close to. It all has meaning. It’s the blink that pushes it forward though. 

I’m reminded this morning that we get what what we ask for and people don’t absorb things by osmosis. “That’s out of nowhere,” you say?  Not really. I think it a lot. I think of the things I do. Of what the work I’ve spent the last 20 years building means to me. While it may not seem like it, I feel like I’ve mostly tried to build what I feel are important things and let them lie. My thought is that you’ll find them if I keep gently offering, and allowing you to pick things up on your own. That’s not how it works. 

Blunt force trauma works some of the time. Constant reminders even more. 

This week, I sent a post directly to a couple of friends and one of them who I communicate with at the least, monthly  for the last 4 years responded with. “How long have you had this (patrickfellows.com) website?”

“4 years,”I replied. 

“How did I not know this?” He said. 

And here I thought I was too much of an attention whore. 

In our own little worlds we think everything is bigger and more visible. We overthink what others think about us (they don’t much) and we hem and haw about everything. The reality is we aren’t as visible as we think. There’s too much else happening and who am I (you) to think that someone in California wakes up and says, “I wonder what PF is thinking right now.”  

To be fair I think this exact thing about people all the time, but I realize that’s not normal. 

In my eyes the world wakes up and wants to improve. They look at their situation and say, “Today’s the day I get healthier. Today’s the day I make change once and for all!”  

Really they are thinking of the myriads of life. Carpool, work, shitty relationships, the weekend, whatever.  As such. They need reminding. 

Me reminding you to slow down and maybe think a little. Asking you to remember that things are going to be okay and that even the bad days can have small patches of plush linings. Me reminding you that you can do it. That everyday is a chance. A silver quarter dropped in the machine with three new lives blinking in the top right corner. 

But you’ve (we’ve) got to ask for what we want. Even if it’s only from ourselves. While things can move forward and good can arrive live a glacier of osmosis. Most of the time we have to ask for more. More from ourselves, more from each other. Sometimes those requests are met with no’s, but if we ask often enough the yeses shine through and we leap forward. 

#hugsandhi5s