I recently attended our local Pride Celebration. I walked through the crowd and filled the reusable bag I received from one vendor with all the freebies I snagged from the others. I didn’t pay much attention to it all until this morning when I needed to make a grocery list. I remembered there were several notepads among the handouts, so I reached in the bag and grabbed one.
I had written “frozen blueberries, apple juice, bananas, toilet paper” before I began to actually notice the writing on the notepad. It was from an attorney’s office (all too appropriate, as you will soon learn). The writing and lines were all in red — brilliant, fire-engine, angry red. The heading said, “My Crisis List,” with the word “crisis” in a big thunderbolty font.
I leaned back and put my pen down. No, this just would not do. Why would anyone want to create that kind of list? Perhaps an attorney wants you to have items in this category, but . . . really???
I had a dilemma. The greenie inside me could not just throw away a perfectly usable pad of paper. What to do, what to do. I stared at the pad for a few minutes and then had an idea. I got a red pen out of the drawer and scribbled until the “c” and the “r” were no longer readable. I had changed my CRISIS list to my ISIS list.
Some might wonder whether a few letters on a page are really important enough to matter. I think they do. But even if they don’t, that’s not really the point. The point is that the universe gave me a wonderful message that I have a choice. I spent several moments in the conscious awareness that I can determine whether to live in a place of crisis or a place of power.
And this is a gift that keeps on giving. Now I have a ready reminder each time I rip off my old sheet and focus my energy on deleting “crisis” from my life as I begin a new list and a new day.
At the bottom of each sheet is the attorney’s website. It’s www.(attorney’s name)bankruptcy.com. Ah, now it made such brilliant marketing sense. But, I’m scratching out that part too. It just isn’t information an Egyptian goddess needs.
Oh, Mighty Isis!
Deb Moore 