Okay, I give.

Hello everyone,

It appears that no matter what I say I'm going to continue to get requests for personal guidance in individual situations. I am now clear on that issue and will beat my drum one last time and let it go.

I can't tell anybody what to do because I don't have enough information. Just because you tell me a lot of detail doesn't mean I have a clear picture. No one sees themselves or their own circumstances objectively - even me - ask my mother she'll tell you. Give her five minutes and an opening and she will regale you with the wonders of my owns personal idiocy. So I know I can't have a clear picture of what's going when I get requests here on My Space because the person from whom I am getting information is personally involved. To assess I must observe and I can't do that on-line.

That having been said, I am now going to answer all of the personal questions I have gotten to date. Certainy they are not the same question but the same themes resonate through out:

1. Most people who ask me what they should do already know the answer. What they should do is something they don't want to do and they are looking for a way out. I don't have one. Sometimes life is uncomfortable and hard. If the right thing were easy everybody would already be doing it.

2. The rules are usually simple. It's typically 'the doing' that causes all of the trouble. I don't believe in lying, cheating or stealing nor do I believe in casual sex. I think if you can't drink responisbly you should not drink at all. I think children are a lot of work and you shouldn't have them until you are ready. I believe that love is the whole purpose of everything but I do not believe that love conquers all. Likewise I do not believe that "But I love him/her" is a good answer to any question.

3. That having been said, I know we are all human (including me) and despite how much we may try we all will break some or all of the above rules for one reason or another, a reason which probably made a great deal of sense at the time based on how we felt. I therefore believe in the Up Rule:

4. If you mess UP, you fess Up ,back Up then clean Up.

5. Any mistake that doesn't put you six feet under can be worked with. You may not be able to fix it but you can deal with it well or not so well. But in order to do anything well you have to A) be willing to see the error in your own actions B) be willing to feel a little pain during the process of rectifying those mistakes .

No magic bullet but it's all I've got. Life is a job.

For what it's worth, though, I struggle too . . . You wouldn't believe some of the dumb stuff I've done. I think progress occurs not because you don't make mistakes but because you learn from the ones you've made. I rarely make the same mistake twice. I make a point to always make new ones!