I’ve had a few wake up calls in my life.. where split decision judgements came back to bite me big time.

I’ll give you an example –

Picture this: a young ME, travelling with my bestie (we didn’t say that then of course.. I don’t even think BFF was a thing yet) through Europe. We landed in Luxembourg right when the European parliament was beginning session – although we clearly had no idea. Because of this, every hotel, hostel, random room in an attic was quickly being snatched up by people flying in to do parliament-type-stuff. 

We lucked out. We got a room. We set out to see the city.

And a guy was hanging out in the lobby of the hostel — since we had attracted literally every kind of weirdo possible talking several different languages through pubs, wineries, restaurants, tourist attractions, and beaches that you could imagine — when he started talking to my bestie, ok I can’t say that again, my best friend (who, keep in mind, is honestly the nicest person ever born), I was quick to swoop in and scoop her up out of what I deemed another UGH situation.

But, dude in the lobby was persistent.. as we walked out, maps in hand, he mentioned that he’s really familiar with everything around and could show us some amazing things. We said no. He asked where we were going, if he could point us in the right direction.. to which, really, what do you say?

So we said church xyz. He said, “Great! I’m going there to take some pictures!” or something… that isn’t word for word.

Point being.. he ended up showing us the church. Then every other beautiful thing Luxembourg had to offer. And he told us that his wife works for parliament and that he accompanies her and takes pictures while she’s at work, that they are from Belgium, and that they would love to show us Belgium too if we were planning to go.

And we did. And they showed us everything, they housed us, they fed us, and they still send a Christmas card every year telling us about their cats and the renovations they’ve done to the chicken farm.

And when I met him? I couldn’t have been more rude.

I understand that we are busy and that we’ve been duped or ‘taken’ one too many times. But the truth is, being a total D!@K doesn’t ever really serve us.

It doesn’t make you feel good and it certainly doesn’t make the person on the receiving end feel light and loved.

It’s physically stressful (which means you’ll contribute to your belly fat just by being a D!@K), emotionally exhausting (because you are STILL thinking about it aren’t you?), and it robs you of not only the ability to feel gratitude, but also some pretty cool experiences. The truth is, you DON’T know it all. You don’t know even a fraction of what is out there to know!

And yes, while there are a ton of actual D!@KS out there, I think that most people are generally well meaning. If someone has made an effort to help you and not asked for anything in return do me a favour and don’t:

D: decide you already know the outcome

I: ignore the fact that it’s a person on the other end

C: claim to know what their intentions are without clarity

K: kick yourself later for being a total D!@K.

If there was ever something to let go of, in a great effort to de-stress our lives and find more time for ourselves, this is a pretty easy one.

What are we SO busy for that we can’t remain human?

Be human today. We all need that.