What if...

Believing in other people is hard, unless you open your eyes and see with a clear mind and a clear heart.

People will read into your thoughts, words and actions the intentions that they have experienced in others, or would themselves carry, but you can't let the ignorance and prejudice of others numb you to truth, to beauty, to passion.

Ally Sheedy's character in "The Breakfast Club" said "When you grow up, your heart dies". It's a wrenching statement and unfortunately all too true. Everyday I deal with people who either have consciously or preconsciously made the choice to lay down their hearts, their souls, their dreams, for the mediocrity that is so easily in their reach, tired as they are of fighting the forces that may make it a challenge to achieve their goals, their potential.

Don't give up. Fight, damn you. Fight until the blood is drained from your veins and replaced with the chemicals that will slow the worms in their relentless need to feed on all that remains.

We substitute things for real accomplishment, for real activity, for real heart and soul and pith and marrow. We take the coward's way out rather than be as human as we dare to be, to strive for excellence and accomplishment. Paul Simon in "Slip Sliding Away" spoke of a woman who had given up on life who said "A good day ain't got no rain. A bad day is when I lie in bed and think of things that might have been."

Yes, I think of things that might have been. If I had been faithful to Psyche. If I had asked Brigit to stay. If I had bastardized myself for a New York publisher more than two decades ago. And I count the people who, on the whole, including myself, who would have perished, if not in the flesh, but in their souls, had I played it too safe. What if...

You know what? "What if" is not a game for scholars. It is a game for cowards.