Sunday, January 30, 2011

meredith...

An early bird catches the worm.
A stitch in time saves nine.
He who hesitates is lost.
We can’t pretend we haven’t been told.
We’ve all heard the proverbs
Heard the philosophers,
Heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time,
Heard the damn poets telling us to seize the day.
Still, sometimes, we have to see for ourselves.
We have to make our mistakes.
We have to learn our own lessons.
We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug,
Until we can’t anymore,
Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin meant.
That knowing is better than wondering.
That waking is better than sleeping.
And even the biggest failure, even the worst most intractable mistake,
Beats the hell out of trying.
Maybe we like the pain…
Maybe we’re wired that way.
Because without it, I don’t know.
Maybe we just wouldn’t feel real.
What’s that saying,…
"Why do I keep hitting myself with a hammer?"
Because it feels so good when I stop.

1 comment:

my5cents said...

No, no one likes pain. When we endure pain there is always some greater pain that we are trying to avoid. But the longer we avoid something the worse it seems, so that if we would just face it, we could eliminate it altogether. The frustrating thing is that even when we know that, we are afraid to confront the long-avoided pain, because we become addicted to the illusion that we are keeping ourselves safe. As though there were any real safety to be had. (Is that clear as mud yet?)