Back in my high school days, it was a popular thing to go to haunted cornfields around Halloween time.
First of all, I don’t like Halloween. I don’t like horror, or gore, or evil, or being scared.
But, my friends were going, so off I went.
For those of you who’ve followed me for a while, you know I married my high school sweetheart, which means she was there at one of these experiences.
When you’re 18, your biggest concern is looking cool and being funny. I can’t say as though I checked either box, but Keri continued to date me. As we entered this particular haunted venue with our group of friends, it seemed exceptionally eerie. About halfway through, after being scared half to death by one thing or the other, there was this door. The worker, dressed in a ghostly outfit, reported that we were to enter this door to continue through the path.
My brain went to: “Nope.”
Not sure exactly why, but I just was super afraid of what was behind that door. But, we (I) was holding up the line, so we had to go. Upon opening the door, it revealed a dimly lit hallway about 20 ft. long. At the end of the hallway…another door. “Hmmm.” I thought. “Not as scary as I imagined.”
Nonetheless, Keri and I tiptoed our way slowly through the narrow corridor, wary that something was going to happen. I was in front, with her closely behind, hand in hand, our feet shuffling to the end of the hallway. When we were about to the end, I was about to reach out to grab the handle of the door, all of the sudden it opened and the most scarily dressed evil creature lurched forward at us at full speed!
In that nanosecond, I had screened a few options.
- Beat the crap out of this monster.
- Cry.
- Fall into the fetal position.
- Run the other way to escape the horrid creature that was lurching toward us.
I chose option 4.
In the chaos of matching my decision with turning my body and getting my feet to move rapidly away from the oncoming horror, I ended up pushing my girlfriend (now wife) out of my way as I sought safety.
Not my proudest moment.
Upon exiting through the door from which I came, the ghost dressed worker person asked… “What are you doing?!?! You’re supposed to go that way!” A second later, I came to my senses and realized what a loser I was. I put my tail between my legs, re-entered the hallway, where both Keri and the Creature from Hell were both doubled over laughing. As I passed by on my way out the other side, the Creature (now, I realized, just a person in a costume) kept saying over and over between gasping for air between laughs… “I got you! I got you bad!”
I often look back at that experience and wonder why Keri ever married me. I mean, in my moment where I was to be brave and a protector of her, I failed… miserably. But, as fate and providence would have it, she must have seen enough other good qualities in me to eventually say “I do.”
Ever had that happen to you? No, I don’t mean pushing your girlfriend out of the way, I mean have you ever overreacted to a situation that was nothing more than a kid in a costume. We often suffer more from imagination than reality. We surmise the biggest threat and problem that could possibly be conjured up… all to have the situation either resolve itself, or not turn out near as badly as you first feared.
Most things we overthink in our minds never turn out as bad as we originally thought. Makes me wonder why we still bother to overthink them. Something about how our minds are hard-wired, we are prone to think of worse case scenarios. In some situations, this innate sense is good. It kept us alive from pouncing lions and other bad things back in the caveman days. But today, many of those ‘staying alive’ scenarios just aren’t the same. We now overthink relationships, work, news, politics, and a smattering of other things that take us Below the Line.
So then, what shall we do? Shall we allow these small issues to become eerie monsters? Shall we allow problems dressed in costumes to cause us to make stupid decisions? May it never be!
May we choose courage over fear. May we choose gratitude over complaining. May we choose to fight to stay Above the Line. May we recognize the times when we are prone to overthinking and put a stop to it. And may we choose a different path that leads to freedom and grace and peace.
May we learn from past mistakes and seek to do better next time. May we step up to the challenge instead of running the other way in fear.
And, may we live on purpose today.
