It’s another day in [Insert Town Name Here].

Your apparently disembodied arm thrusts across the bed.

Unconscious.
Unthinking.
And yet it knows just what to do.

It knows that at 6:00am, its only job is to prevent you from waking up.

Don’t wake up.

Another day.

Another day of routine.

Another day of being told what to do.

Another day of working on someone else’s priorities.

Of doing work that your great-grandkids could not care less about.

You sleepily gaze at your reflection through a glued-shut eye.

A hazy, disheveled  reflection peers back.
Even your reflection has bad breath.

You jump back.  Startled.

“Stupid mirror.  I’ve got to get that self-image fixed today.

I’ll consult the Oprah.”

You hop into the passenger’s side seat. Coffee spilling onto the dashboard.

“I’m late.  Again.”

The driver, Obligation, gives you a stern look over horn-rimmed glasses

Before backing out of the driveway.

“Move your head!”, Obligation yells testily to the person in the back.

Guilt’s head ducks to the left.

And then informs you both:

“You did a really terrible job of getting us to where we needed to be yesterday.

I don’t know what’s wrong with you.

Just listen to me and things won’t fall to pieces like they did already.”

You hang your head and stare at the swirl in your coffee.

As usual, Guilt is right.

In a flash of defiance, you put on your iDenial headphones.

But you can still see Guilt’s big head in the rear-view mirror.

Guilt’s mouth is still moving.

“Where … is… it… “, you mumble under your breath.

ah.  In rummaging through the love compartment

You find what you were looking for.

Your rose-colored Daydreamer glasses.

The incessant talking from Guilt and Obligation fade into the background

As your iDenial pumps your head full of good excuses

And your Daydreamer glasses keep you adequately medicated.

The iDenial playlist is H-O-T this morning! They’re playing all your favorites!

1. I have no time to do it.
2. I don’t have enough money to do it.
3. I don’t know how to do it.
4. I don’t have a perfect plan yet.
5. I’d probably fail.
6. I’d probably get criticized.
7. I don’t know what might happen if I take a risk.  Why risk that?
8. It’s probably too hard.
9. I have too much other stuff going on right now.
10. It may work for others – but it won’t work for me.
11. I’ve tried and failed before. I’m just no good at this.
12. What I have now isn’t so bad.

HOOOONK!

Obligation leaning on the car horn jolts you out of your stupor.

“Get a job, jerks!”, yells Obligation.

Obligation just ran a red light, almost bowling over your neighbors from one street over in the process.

Perseverance, Resolve, Focus and Discipline.

Those four are always jogging out here at rush hour.

“Don’t they work?

Slackers.”

You can’t stand their T-shirts, either.

One says: “Dream with your feet.”

Another: “Fall down seven times. Stand up eight.”

You mindlessly shove your McBusywich into your pie hole.

Crumbs and empty calories everywhere.

The iDenial gets cranked back up.

Sitting in rush hour traffic on I-Routine…

You are mollified by the fact that
there are so many upstanding citizens
Nobly putting in the hours to keep our great society running

Everyone’s car looks just like yours.

• Obligation in the driver’s seat.
• Guilt talking from the back.
• Everyone’s inching forward, switching lanes
• Driving a car labeled “Joneses”

Your greatest excuse for living a mediocre, routine life?

For deferring your dreams?

For betraying your grand aspirations?

“Everyone else was doing it…”