DENIED!

I am laughing because I hear the above shouted in the voice of one of my old bosses. This is as good as any place to start, AP shouting DENIED when I ask a co-worker why she didn't accept my frendship on Facebook.

She eventually did, then we parted ways, and she closed her account, and occasionally surfaces to meet for coffee.

This all somehow connects to a minor epiphany I had enroute to work this am. (Another one? Damn, with all these epiphanies, one would wonder why I am not more enlightened.) I had been fighting off some niggling feelings the last fortnight or so, struggling with some old demons of people past. This morning, as I reviewed some files, a voice spoke--or did I actually see the words?--that no one makes you feel bad without your permission.

True? Damn right.

Back to my header. The implicit question "Permission granted?" answered in one hearty word. DENIED.

I feel almost as euphoric as when I finally learned to say 'no.'

And why not? There comes a time when you know your worth, your friends and family know and cherish it, and, as a consequence, you learn to shut down people who have nothing positive to contribute to your life. Kind of giving you permission to say 'DENIED!' to anyone who has nothing better to do than to tear you--and everyone else around them, for that matter--down.

Build. And if you don't know how, learn. The only real 'too late' in life is when you're dead.

It's not too late. Tomorrow is a new day. Make it count.