The ability to always be prepared to walk away is found in two places. First and foremost it is found in an unwavering faith that your needs will always be fulfilled. You must know and believe that God and His Infinite Universe are there to surround you and protect you, guide you and bless you. No, this does not mean you can sit at home and wait for a million dollars to knock on your door. But if you are inspired into action, such as a date or an interview, it is not always because, to quote myself, “This is it! I just know it!” At times we are only being guided into a certain situation to receive a blessing or to learn a lesson, or to take another step closer to where we are actually supposed to be. So do not think that these occurrences are God “teasing” you or testing you. They are, however, teaching you. We must enter these situations not with a mindset of making something happen, but in a mindset of being open to receive a blessing, with no expectation what form that blessing will take.

The second place the treasure hunt with take you is the garden of Detachment, where you wander alone. The word “detach” has gotten a pretty bad wrap in modern society. When we describe someone as being detached, it has the connotation of being aloof, or stuck-up, uncaring, or unkind. Get this into your head once and for all. Detachment is good. You must remove yourself from the influence of other people, places, or things, and to do this you must detach. When you do, you will immediately liberate yourself from any control “it” has on you. This is even true of relationships. In her book Why Men Love Bitches [the author] tells women, “Don’t give away the pink slip!” (This particular pink slip to which she refers is not the one referred to when getting fired, rather it is the title for an automobile, like in Grease, “We’re racing for pinks. Pinks? Ya, pink slips. Papers?”) What she means is hold on to your ownership papers. If you put full dependence on whatever is on the metaphorical table during the proverbial negotiation, your desire for it controls you and your emotions.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer, the pastor when I attended Moody Church in Chicago, said once, “God will continually allow Man to disappoint you, so that you learn to put your trust in Him, not in Man.” And humans will, indeed, continually disappoint you. But do you know there is one reason and one reason only for disappointment? When you expect something you do not get. One cannot have false or exaggerated expectations if one is detached. Therefore, there is little opportunity for disappointment. Why? Because you came to the table prepared to walk away if the terms or the people are not beneficial to your life.

Think about Facebook for a minute, I know it’s not hard, that is probably how you got to this page in the first place. Don’t worry, I am not judging, I was there just before you to post a link to this page so you could get to it. If you are anything like me you do, however, give the premise of Facebook a bit of pause, thanks to all of the big brother and privacy conspiracies floating around out there which are all but too believable. My use of the social media tool has not waned, however, because I have justified it with the realization that it really is nice to keep in touch with everyone.

As Hamlet says, “Aye, there’s the rub.”

Maybe we are not meant as humans to be that connected, has anyone ever thought about that? In the past if someone was a bitch to you in high school, you graduated and never thought about them again, but now, all of the sudden same bitch who is still a bitch wants to be your “friend,” and it is okay because you are more concerned with what she is up to and whether or not you turned out prettier or more well off than you are concerned with the fact you are letting negative energy into your life. Then add to that the immediate dismay if you post a status and eight people don’t “like” it right away, and that my friends is a recipe for a severely detrimental attachment. Some of your friends on Facebook are people that you would not even recognize if they were walking down the street, yet you daily air your grievances to them and even worse, you have to read what someone had for lunch that day or how much more awesome they are than you because they went to the gym. Then you don’t post that hilarious picture because some people may not approve, and you don’t ever say anything about smoking weed because God forbid anyone know you smoke weed. All of these worthless attachments, zombie-like interests in, and concerns for the mundane are harmful and they wear away at your soul. And they further distract and detract from two fundamental truths: that you can be anything you want to be and f*@% ‘em if they can’t take a joke.