I swear...the world is becoming more and more unhinged by the second it seems. You can't even frequent relatively safe areas anymore without worrying if somebody is going to cause you harm or death.
Over this past weekend, I took my daughter on a long-awaited beach weekend retreat in Dana Point where she wanted to swim in the water and make sand castles. Since I had been working for a solid 4 weekends straight (including speaking at my Money Funnel 2.0 Workshop), I promised to NOT work 1 weekend and to take her on this little beach get-away.
But the hotel sucked. (She liked it, though, so I kept my mouth shut.) But you'd think that if you're paying $400 a night, you'd be able to get room service or, in the very least, have a restaurant on site. Not the case at the DoubleTree dump we stayed at. (I was trying to get at my "usual" Surf & Sand hotel but they were booked up!)
However, since this was for Brie, I decided to pretend like the hotel was the best place ever since, in actuality, none of that really matters anyway. Does it? It's who you spend time with and not where you are that makes all the difference in the world.
However, what bothered me was that in order to get to the beach we had to cross the street and walk through what looked like a degenerating trailer park mixed with transients and low-end RVers. I found it unbelievable that this prime stretch of beach real estate was being misused in such a horrific way but it's a state park so...what can you really expect?!
The Psychopath Who Tried Luring Us Into the Bushes...
To Do Who Knows What!
The place all seemed "okay" when I saw the amount of kids around. Kids generally signify that there aren't any (or many) rapists and serial killers lurking about the place, at least not among the patrons that are there.
This is what I thought until the last morning we were at the beach and decided to head back to beat traffic home. It was about 10am and there was this strange guy with 2 dogs who suddenly decided to stare at something off into the bushes next to a chain link fence the moment he saw us walking toward him. He started talking to his dogs about this imaginary "thing" we was supposedly looking at.
As we walked by, he said: "Did you see the bee hive in this bush?"
"Nope." I quickened my pace, telling Brie to hurry up. She was carrying Sally (our dog) because she doesn't do well around other dogs.
"You should look at this bee hive," he insisted. "It's huge." Yet this was such a "huge" bee hive that I didn't see a single bee flying about or swarming around which is simply impossible if there is a "huge" beehive anywhere. (I actually have a "huge" beehive in my front yard inside a green county easement vent which I don't mess with because we're in such great need of bees on our planet. And I constantly see the bees coming and going at all hours of the day by the hundreds. This and having grown up with beehives in my backyard -- thanks to my parents -- I happen to know a lot about beehives.)
"I don't like bees," I said to the psychopath crack-pot. I was about to tell him that I was allergic but decided that additional conversation was just a waste of valuable escape time. At this point I was on the verge of beginning a brisk jog as I told Brie to hurry up yet again.
As we distanced ourselves from this freakoid, Brie told me, "I didn't see any bees."
And I told her, "Because there weren't any, that's why. He's a liar because he's a total whack-job and he was probably trying get us near the bushes so he could hit us over the head or something. That's how it always happens, you know. They lure you into some area with a lie and then they hurt you. That's why you can't trust anybody."
It bothered me that this is the type of stuff I have to tell her, almost routinely these days. But I need her to know that it's (a) okay to be rude -- even to and especially to an adult -- when you don't want to look at something (like imaginary bees, for instance) or do something they're asking you to do (which may include putting yourself in danger), and (b) many times when people are trying to cause harm, they do it with a lie or "bait." And you cannot fall for it otherwise it may very well be the last thing you do (or the last thing you wished you did).
The World...Coming Unglued Each and Every Day
I'm starting to think that as the world becomes more and more off balance, more and more of these off-kilter people rear their ugly heads everywhere. We're seeing this with more frequent shootings and terrorist attacks, now anywhere and everywhere in the world. Nothing is off limits anymore.
It kind of reminds me of Michael Jackson's Thriller where the zombies suddenly rise out of the ground to attack the living. Why were they underground yesterday? Why today are they coming up after being dormant for so long? When was the trigger point of the madness we're seeing today?
And will it end? Or will it just keep getting worse and worse as time goes on? (I think we both know the answer to that one!)
So, what do you do? How do you survive?
I do believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I really do. But it requires living a much more BALANCED lifestyle. And by BALANCE, I mean including the following essential components:
1) Doing what you want to do (career or professionally), ideally selecting something that doesn't steal more than 40 hours per week of your time. The perfect scenario will be to do something that requires 30 hours per week or less that can give you more than a full-time income so you can do other things, which brings me to...
2) Taking A LOT more down-time. This includes traveling or sitting at home to read (or organize your pictures or your closet...or whatever you want to do that doesn't require a rigid schedule).
3) Living in an area of the country (or the world) that's harmonious to you, ideally with fewer people than a major metropolitan area. Living among fewer people (rather than a place like NYC where everybody is stacked on top of one another) allows for a much more harmonious "flow" of peace and prosperity into your life.
But to do ANY or ALL 3 of the above, you need money. You need an opportunity to allow you the lifestyle that you want.
Good news: I have that for you. CLICK HERE and I'll share more about what I'm talking about.
In the meantime, stay away from weirdos. It's getting crazy out there. Now is the time to really start trusting your instincts because it's about all we have left as our last line of personal defense.
See you at the top!
Your mentor,
Monica Main
