Finally after trying to get the eye liner brush up to my eye for what felt like the zillionth time I yelled out loud “Scenario Stop!” Mind you I live in an apartment building so if my neighbors heard me they probably wondered what the heck I was yelling about as they know pets aren’t allowed and I live by myself. And you know what my mind stopped. I heard silence. Trust me after hearing yourself go on and on and round and round you can hear silence! Surprised by this I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “Enough already. It sucks but this won’t get you over it. You’re a good person, he wasn’t.” Which of course sent me into more tears…remember that rollercoaster I was telling you about. One heck of a ride isn’t it. Rollercoaster parks should be knocking at my door for their next design. At least now I was dealing with real feelings and not just illusions that were created by Imagination. 

     Now late for work and now on the road, my mind once again started with the what if questions. Scenario heard my what if questions signaled Imagination to wave his wand and once again it started and once again I yelled out loud “Scenario Stop!” Followed with the same result of my mind going silent, this time I tuned into the radio and well of course, the road. My battle against Scenario had officially begun.  

     I am here to tell you that the battle against Scenario is a never ending one but it does get a lot better; tons in fact. Much like a war once you start to fight something you start gaining ground because you realize the truth is what you are starting the war against. Once you gain ground you gain confidence that the fight can be won and that is what started happening to me. Imagine if you will that while venturing deeper and deeper into the land of “what if” that every time you yelled “Scenario Stop!” you turned around, saw through the illusion created by Imagination, and were able to take a step closer back to the door that leads to reality; a reality that you were going to be able to deal with, recreate for yourself, and regain your life in. Sounded like the golden chalice to me and I wanted it.  

     You’re out there, you’re in “what if” land deep, you feel so lost but the thing is you’re not. The answer hasn’t changed because its reality and now its history. What do we know about history? We’ve learned the most important lesson in history is that we can learn from it so that we do not live to repeat it. Eventually, just as I did in my case, we will. Steps forward are lovely but they are nothing without the steps we take backwards. If we learn from those steps, the ones forward and the ones back, we are bound to live better lives.   

     Where does one start in their battle against Scenario? One of the best places to start is to find the one thing that you can grab onto in your spinning world and yell “Scenario Stop!” That one thing you grab onto can be anything. It can be making the tears stop so you don’t have to keep running while at work to find a place to cry to the words of advice that someone gave you that you want to follow. The goal is to make your world stop spinning, to end the feeling that you are in a void; it is as simple as just feeling good for one minute followed by many minutes after.  No of course it isn’t easy, what is when it requires us to kick our own butts back into shape. Here I go mentioning reality again but honestly where do you want to spend your time? In a land that holds your life back and not once will ever give you a real answer or in a reality where you can face the facts, learn from the experience, move past it, and make your own future even better? I know where I am headed, care to join me? 

      The golden chalice is whatever it is you decide to strive for. For me it was to get my appetite back, to forgive myself of not listening to my own soul screaming to get away from someone that was no good for me, to find ways to have confidence that I could trust myself to make choices again and most importantly, to really feel the joy that my family and friends were truly bringing me.

     I have won the majority of my battles and I will say that I made it out of the land of “what if” but man does it ever call you back to which I return with “Scenario Stop!” My hope for you is that you will be able to do the same.

     Live in reality today so you can better understand what tomorrow brings.

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