Stimulus/Response

 Between the stimulous

And the response

You always have a choice.

Act.

Don't react.

I have lived most of my 

Adult life 

With these ideas in mind.

Or tried to. 

Event, choice

Stimulous, response. 

But this model, 

Though wise, 

Has forced me to ignore 

A middle stage.

It is true, I can choose how to act. 

But before I choose, 

There is the spontaneous, 

Gut-level, natural

Reaction. 

Reactions can be inaccurate

Or out of preportion

Or out of control.

But I have forgotten this. 

I have attempted to choose 

With Vulcan-like logic,

Detached in a vacuum, 

At times, 

Forgetting that my reactions are,

At the very least, 

Data for my logical mind to utilize,

Information available to me 

To use 

When I choose. 

And worse, 

I seem to have forgotten

That my two-word, 

Event-choice model 

Seems to imply that I must always choose 

How 

To keep dealing with 

Current events, 

With my current situation, 

Instead of 

If 

I need to keep dealing  

With my current situation,

Forgetting that sometimes my reactions

Are trying to tell me, 

To scream at me, 

That walking away from the stimulus,

Removing myself from a situation, 

Is a response, too. 

I don't have to stand still 

Hoping that having a better attitude 

Towards the thing that keeps crashing down on top of me

Will somehow make it better.

Sometimes things just keep on crashing

No matter how much I smile.

I can walk away.

I can turn and run away toward something new. 

Moving on is a choice.