I've Got Friends In Low Places...

At risk of dashing some people's well-formed and outstanding perception of me, I have to leave out a few details from this story, but feel free to hit me up on the street to get the missing details :) .  What's important in this blog is the message and not the details surrounding how the message was arrived to.

I decided to go out and visit the nightlife of major Midwestern town outside of Chicago.  I took a long a new found buddy of mine Pete for the ride as we both didn't really have a whole lot to do in the evenings after all-day meetings at work other than eat, drink, and sleep.  We decided to go hit up a local establishment we had read about online that promised to be both entertaining and engaging in different ways.  After a quick bite to eat at a sports bar (where I missed out on a chance for live band karaoke - here known as "bandiokie"), we headed on over.

Eventually through the night's festivities, we ended up talking with a girl and a group of her friends sitting near us.  After busting out a freestyle rap about them as an ice breaker, we hung out with them for about two hours telling jokes, sharing stories, and having pleasant conversation. Then shite got real.  I gave her a hypothetical question:

"It's your day off.  Some one hands you $10,000.  What do you do with it?"

She thought about it for a bit and said, "Well, I'd go get a massage.  I don't know.  Then like, go get my nails done.  Do I need to spend it all in one day?"

"It's up to you," I responded.  She was very uneasy with the fact she couldn't really answer the question.  So, of course, she turned the question back on me.  "What you do with $10,000?"

"Well," I started out, "I would wake up and thank the person giving me the money.  Well, I guess I'd already be awake at this point so I would just thank that person.  Then I'd get dressed," I said to break up the tension a little bit.

"Then, I'd call my man Pete here, go to Guitar Center, get some instruments, some recording equipment, set it up in my basement, then jam out and record a $10,000 record."

The second I said this, her entire demeanor changed from a subdued state to complete animation. "YES!  YES!," she said.  "That's what I would do!  I would totally - you don't know how much I've wanted to be a singer."

"Can you sing?" I asked her.

She smiled and said, "Yes, totally."

"Then why aren't you pursuing it?" I asked.  By this time, her friends had bailed so Pete and I had her undivided attention. "If you know you're a singer, go out and sing!"

"Well, I haven't found people yet to do it with," she said in a defeated tone of voice.

"So?  You no longer need a 'band' to be able to perform.  You can sing in the shower, on the train, in a car, a corner - you can sing in the middle of a Starbucks.  Just ask Pete!"

"Yeah," Pete responded pointing at me. "We were at Starbucks earlier and he was singing all kinds of crazy stuff."

"Well, I've got to get my head together first.  I've been trying to straighten out my life for the last three years,"  she said trailing off

Right as she was about to say something else like "Oh, I can't do that!" or "That's not me", I spoke up in a very confident voice and said, "Look.  You can accomplish anything you truly want to.  You are your own worst enemy (Ed. - ironically enough, I had chosen "My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit to sing at bandiokie but ran out of time).  Stop blocking yourself from achieving something that makes you happy.  This is what I want you to do."

I took out a piece of paper and folded it in half length-wise then opened it back up.

"Fold a piece of paper, a napkin, a manual - any piece of paper like this.  On the left side of this paper, title it 'Things I Will Do'.  On this side, you will jot down things that you are most definitely going to do no matter what.  Nobody will be able to stop you from doing it.  You could get shot right now and you'd still find a way to get it done.  Nobody will stand in your way.  Then on the right side, title it 'Things the Universe Will Do'.  List here the things that you want to happen; from getting a large amount of money to traveling to becoming famous - write it all here.  These are the things you're going to allow the Universe to align itself to provide you without any direct effort from you.  Don't worry about this side.  Just trust it will happen eventually."

This girl's entire demeanor totally changed after giving her this advice.  it was like her opening up a present on Christmas morning because she just lit up like the Christmas tree.  She looked at us as if she were on the verge of crying and said, "I...I totally needed this...something...to show me that I can do this...because I can do this...I just really needed a sign to let me know..."

With that statement, it was like *BAM* we're all connected here.  Her smiles seemed empty all night but now they were totally full of life and vigor.  She definitely put on a show for everyone but we cut right through that quickly.

Before we left, she was so overwhelmed with joy that she gave us a nice hug and was like, "I'm going to do this.  I'm going to this!"  Pete and I walked all of the way back to the hotel talking about what we just experienced.  We all left feeling like we were all in a better place.