An endless stream of advice threatened to drown her. It jumped out from news stands,
spewed forth from self made gurus with book deals and well meaning friends with good
intentions. What the world needed she surmised was an everyday guru, someone who
didn’t have the secret or know the way. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! It was an epiphany of
orgasmic proportions. Bethany donned her ($5.99 on special) PJ’s with the huge pink
flowers and yellow polka dots, slipped on ugg boots, which to the untrained eye may
have looked suspiciously like road kill and started to write….
“Tales of an Everyday Guru: How to avoid being eaten by the Fear Monster.”
“The fear monster lurks in the shadows, feeding on insecurity and self doubt. It has big
scary teeth which drip with sarcasm and can puncture even the biggest of all dream
balloons.”
Bethany knew all about the fear monster. It was there last Christmas when she asked
her boss for a rise, it stood right behind her the day she confronted a friend about
money borrowed and it tried to prevent her from stepping forward to help an old man
who was being bullied by some teenagers.
“The fear monster doesn’t discriminate. It will eat the rich and the poor, the black and
the white, the gay and the straight, the Christians and the Atheists. And it doesn’t feed
at any particular time of day or night, which means you will never know when it will bite
you in the butt.”
This is the irony Bethany thought. No self respecting, self made guru will ever admit to
being stalked by the fear monster. I mean who is going to buy a book from someone
who on the odd occasion still looks under the bed for monsters! My God the drama of it
all to be caught wearing our humanity, it would be almost as bad as being caught
wearing underwear brought at the local thrift store.
“So how does one recognize the fear monster? Is it big or small or fat or tall? Is it blue or
brown or square or round? Is it invisible to the naked eye or hairy and scary like the
things our mothers told us lurked in the shadows of the night?”
Hmmm….that’s a good question. Bethany shoved another mouthful of warm popcorn in
her mouth, a good portion of which tumbled like snow flakes onto the floor. It went
unnoticed in the moment.
© Robin J Roberts http://1step1dayatatime.com 2012
