I've kept it around me for almost 10 years, moving it from office to home office to another office and another. Every time I look at it, it reminds me that it's OK to want things that are bad for me, as long as I don't act on those desires. By desires, I mean everything from fried food to binge drinking to speeding to getting involved with inappropriate men. These things are bad. You'd think I would have stopped wanting to hurt myself by now, but I haven't. Want and Need fight it out every so often. Last year, it was sugar. Before that, alcohol. Before that, it was him...or him...or him. I can want them, I can talk about them, but I don't need them. I have to protect myself from those desires. I require safety and security and comfort, but what I want never seems to involve any of those.
This is my talisman. Because I will always find something that I'll want to do without a net.
"Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure." ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
