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Sunday Mar. 22, 2015


We behave, like statistics in some text book. We are like rats or mice in lab experiments – life events happen to us, large or small.

Fight, or not.

Flee, or not.

Stay, but don’t fight.

So many options.

Oh bother, what to do?

Everyone picks their own battles …

Picks the time, picks the battlefield.

I know, it seems like someone else set the agenda.

These battles only occur when we engage, buy-in, participate.

That’s a decision.

Running is a decision.

So is running away.

Things not working out as we plan, as we expect or as we hope is nothing new. That happens every day, happens to everyone, happens in every way imaginable. Too often if feels like conflict, hurts like it was on purpose or seems like an event/skirmish within a battle.

Most often that battlefield in the five inch space between our ears – we are the combatants, the cheering and jeering audience, the bad referees and the unfair media reporting how poorly we played, how sadly we lost, how miserably we represented our selves.

Sometimes those battles move away from the domain of the lizard-brain self-infliction reflection to become real conflicts, real angst … with real people.

How does that look?

Kick me. I’ll kick back, and I don’t mean relax.

Cut me, and I’ll cut back and I don’t mean I’ll reduce spending.

Push me, and I’ll push back but not physically – I’ll respond, retort or really embarrass myself, spewing first words that gush from my brain. Like hitting the send button when we are angry.

Often not the wisest tactic.

Or I’ll run.

Or you will run. 

 

Mark Kolke

column written/ published from Calgary, AB

morning walk:  -5C/23F, yesterday’s foggy haze is gone, clear and calm – sun-up soon! Gusta seemed more interested in car tires this morning (some critter must have left their scent) than on the scenery. She missed two deer – they didn’t run away – she walked right by them in search of something else …


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