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I’ve troubled myself a great deal recently wondering whether or not I’ve missed opportunities that could of made my financial situation better. I think about the professional ambition that I avoided thinking that it was either dishonest or too prideful, or at least something other than the love of good work.

I found this sign while fretting. No doubt it fell off of a sofa or exercise machine while someone was hauling it off the curb, but out of context it was a great find. I realized that I have worked hard to get what’s most important to me to be ready for what’s free to me now. It’s hard to remember that because it’s all around me every day. I’ve got a great wife and great children, and that wasn’t even remotely possible to me in the past.

(No pictures this time.  My camera is dying and I can’t afford a new one just yet, besides, it’s just a paperclip.  Imagine it.)

On my walk, I was being overly concerned about money.  About a block a way, I saw something shiny in the gutter, something certainly metal.  I’ve found jewelry plenty of times before and this seemed a possibility.

A paperclip holds paper together by being bent, and clinging to a bent shape.  Its grip is relatively loose, and temporary.  A staple holds by piercing.  I will think about staples.

I was remembering a time when I meditated a lot, sometimes for most of the day for days in a row. I saw this several blocks later after my mind had already drifted away.

What I had remembered most was that, near the end of my practice of meditation, I had read something about a form of walking meditation. I think what I do is the opposite of that now.

I’ve been listening for more than I’ve been listening to lately. In most of my life so far, these groups are greatly overlapped, so these times are easily passed. I try listen for a voice and it starts to speak. I listen to a beat and I can make my own music.
Now, I’m getting a long silence. There are noises that drop into the background, quickly uncomprehended and then quickly forgotten, but mostly, there’s silence.

I’ve been listening for answers and missing the music I pass. I’ve heard the clean noise and left it unlistened to.

I’ve been overly anxious about many things for about a week. My life has growing concerns. This morning my walk was nearly ruined by heavily-rutted thinking about things about which I could do nothing.

Once I saw the tweezers, all the problems seemed like slivers. Of concern, but so small and barely dangerous and, most of all, better dealt with by finer thinking.