“It is easier to fool someone than convince them they have been fooled” – Mark Twain
I almost fell in love a while back. I’m told I was fooled. To this day, I don’t believe it. Though I don’t give that much thought anymore, at the time, I justified it with the raw and real depth of my experience. It was palpable. The countless hours conversing, lunch turned to dinner, turned to sunset, then sunrise. I didn’t make this stuff up, it happened. You can chalk this up to many an impressionable woman with a warm heart that had been touched in the right places. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in this experience. Was hard to believe, a woman who reads labels, chooses with intention, what she reads, watches, listens to, eats, where she shops, how and with whom she spends her time etc – could be so blatantly fooled. So I never believed.
Truth is, we are fooled everyday. We believe in low carb, sugar free, natural. We believe foods are healthy for us because the label sais, or “they” say so; without ever tapping into what is healthy according to the wisdom of our unique bodies. We believe in creams containing ingredients foreign to our skin/bodies. We are fooled by the media about what’s important in the world, without ever really checking into the wisdom life is screaming is important in our own unique lives. We are fooled by glittery carrots extending the promise of our worth to us; without ever touching the depth of our worth as it sits within us and how it shapes other people’s lives, our parents, our children, our partners. We are fooled about beauty, truth, value because we accept the values of others as our own. This we willingly accept without question. Because we don’t want to see just how fooled we have been. Because it’s work to search, learn, get educated, take responsibility. But responsibility is the fool’s saviour and self-awareness his shield.
Though my experience was real, the result had me feeling foolish. Something to be said about where the journey took me.
Give yourself permission to admit you’re being fooled. Knowing is the first step from fool to sage.
-KM