A lot of lives are just plain clogged up with goo. I’m not talking about actual gunk that you can see, feel, or even wash off. If it were only that easy, the goo would be gone from most people’s lives… well maybe.

You can’t see the plaque that clogs up your arteries without special medical equipment, but you believe that it’s there when the chest pain starts and your doctor explains what’s causing the pain. Most people will take that conversation very seriously and do what their doctor tells them to. Some won’t. Some will keep eating the wrong foods, sitting around and not exercising, and some will even keep smoking.

Even when we’re faced with actual pain that we can identify, and the actual possibility of death, some of us will not change our habits and try to improve our situation. That’s bad, really bad. It’s bad in and of its own, but even more so because the goo that I’m talking about you can’t see at all, you can’t directly feel or measure. There are no x-rays, or sophisticated tests to make the goo, or its effects readily visible. Although a small percentage of people can easily see the goo’s presence and its effects, most people are blind to it and to them it’s completely invisible. This means that even fewer people will actually take it seriously and try to rid it from their lives.

If we could create a special pair of glasses, perhaps as in a science fiction movie, that would allow anyone to see this goo, what would they see when they put on the glasses? What would their reaction be? Would they do anything about it? Or would apathy win again?

If they put on the glasses, they’d see every self-doubt, every second guess, every fear, every negative thought, every spiteful thought, every hateful act, every passed up opportunity to help someone else, every missed or passed up chance to foster growth in someone else, and every passed up opportunity to build up someone else’s spirit creating more of the most disgusting, foul, revolting, suffocating goo you’ve ever seen.

This stuff is so bad it makes vomit look good. I mean it’s nasty. It literally oozes from every pore of the body. With these special glasses, they would see themselves practically drowning in it. They’d see it dripping from their hands, face, ears, arms, from every part of their body. You can’t wash it away, wipe it off, or hide it. It slows you down and pulls at you with its stickiness. You slosh through it as you walk from room to room, spreading it everywhere you go, and boy is this stuff contagious. When you open your car door to get out, it flows out in an endless flood like some infected alien mucus into the street.

Not everyone has this goo. A small percentage of the population is immune to its effects and resistant to its infection. Why? I’m not sure. Just as some people have natural gifts for things like running, singing, painting, etc. I think some people are naturally positive, giving individuals, who even in the darkest of circumstances continue to give off goodness and grace and lift those around them. My wife is one of these people. When we started dating, I would tell her that she was like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty and had little birds singing around her head when she woke up in the morning. Soon after telling her that, when I would do something to hurt her feelings or disappoint her, she would tell me that I had killed one of her birds. I think this was the beginning of my ability to understand and see the effects of this goo.

Being able to understand and see the effects of this goo is so important when dealing with children. Our jobs as a parent or teacher is to mold, shape, and guild, not drown our children in our own goo. It’s easy to see: go to a few sporting events for kids like soccer or baseball. Watch for the bulling parent yelling at their kid and telling them how bad they are. All that goo from the lousy parent just killed the birds flying around their child’s head. Their spirit is completely gone, suffocated by the slimy goo that their parent is spewing all over them. Hopefully you’re not one of those type parents.

Learning to recognize your own goo gushing attitudes, behaviors, and habits is critical to achieving your goals and dreams.

One attribute of goo that I haven’t mentioned is that it’s very dense and highly magnetic and will therefore attract more goo! In order to have room to attract positive things you have to reduce the amount of goo in your life. Just like you can’t have up without down, a front without a back, a top without a bottom, hot without cold, you can’t have good without bad, and goo is the bad part.

Pay close attention and you can begin to see its effects and its presence.

To remove the goo, you have to change things about yourself and your life. Some people require only a small change; other people need a massive overhaul. In the most extreme cases, a person will need to completely walk away from almost everything and everyone in their life. It’s hard to change and each step requires conscious thought and effort. You’ll catch yourself slipping over and over; however, a change eventually becomes a habit. Don’t give up.

The more goodness you exude, the less goo you have clogging up your life. Remove the goo and you’ll be free to achieve anything you set your mind to.

Sincerely,

Fred