It's time to start stepping outside the shell. My belief for the last year has been that if I make decision A, that automatically and eternally precludes decision B. This may or may not be accurate information, but the point is to not think that it is a de facto absolute. Instead, the point should be to try to get the most of everything, rather than settling for nothing.
Because I have been afraid to make any decisions, I'm living in a place and a way that I don't like, with my life in idle, waiting for someone to force a choice on me, which I can then fight against, rather than reaching a conclusion as to whether or not it's a good choice and one that I should take. I don't make choices any more. Instead I'm presented with absolutes.
Time to start making decisions and stop being presented with things that have already been accomplished. "If X" does not mean "then not Y." It simply means "how will Y be accomplished at this time?"
If there's only one shot - and yes, there is, in my opinion; I don't believe in reincarnation or eternal souls or even giant glowing bubbles of gas - then the trick is to have it all.
"I've often thought about that old man, about how chance words can touch peoples' lives in ways that are impossible to predict. Bend the world, he said, don't accept having less than you want, and blow a hole in anything that blocks your way. Armed with that notion, many people could have gone on to carve themselves a life that culminated in something approaching peace. It was good advice, and well meant.
I was just the wrong person to give it to."
- Michael Marshall Smith, Spares
Time to start bending the world, time to start clearing away the detritus.
I'm strangely comfortable with the idea. I'm just not sure if the total sense of emptiness I feel at stating the need and desire for change is due to being sort of sick at work, or the sign that this is another Well-Meant Self Improvement Get A Life Moron Project, or if it's the sort of sense of total emptiness before change is possible.
Or it could be because I'm just spewing crap. I am a sick, twisted little ego monster, full of hate and fear, and I don't know what it looks like outside any more.