The ultimate alibi

To meet someone on the road may have more significance than you realize.  This person, regardless of their physical appearance, or what they may say, draws attention to you.  Imagine everyone you met was your clone.  If this was true, it would be difficult to describe who you are, to be in a position to distinguish yourself from other people.  If we thought people were all the same inside, it would also be hard to expand experiences of who you are. The question is, do you recognize learning opportunities take the form of people or permit it to simply pass you by?

A friend of mine is developing his character by investigating the newly-discovered, suspicious practices of his business partner. If the situation had been discovered a year ago, its unlikely he would be taking his current approach to uncover the truth.  This friend's original plan was to turn a blind eye and escape from details he didn't wish to know. And then, out of the blue, he was recontacted by an old school friend to reconnect. Turned out this old friend had a shockingly similar experience with a former business partner.  Old friends tightened their bond by helping each other. My friend has been learning new ways to step outside his comfort zone. He considers his old friend a guardian angel who entered his life when he had been trapped in a prison of fear.

What is your ultimate alibi for not doing what you know in your heart to be the right thing? You may offer excuses as an effort to convince yourself what you're doing or not doing is acceptable to yourself. You might remind yourself a difference exists between creating a meaningful life and trying to eek out a living. If part of you is living in a state of quiet desperation, doing what you think you must do in order to survive, perhaps its time to redefine the meaning of your survival? As you learn to look beyond what you have to lose, you'll discover everything you have to gain.

My own life has taught me we construct our understanding of survival and this may go far beyond satisfying basic needs. In speaking with passing strangers, and in particular, a man I recently met on a plane who could a recent encounter with a guardian angel, my attention was drawn back to what has always brought my soul its greatest joy. In our exchanges since, I've thought back to having referred to some of my greatest passions as "alibis." I sensed I was just biding time for something other people thought was better for me, when I knew myself what was best all the time.

After all is said and done, to whom to we owe our greatest sense of responsibility, if not to ourselves? In case you forgot, you're your ultimate alibi, from the moment you are born until the day you die. Guardian angels you meet throughout your life will remind you of this. Yet, will you listen?