Excerpts from the upcoming work by Douglas Robbins entitled I Have A Pebble In My Shoe…

I never wanted any of it. I never wanted a piece of the pie or slice of the dream, a 401k in my future, or the equation of what I’m supposed to be and want: all lined out in front of me on a nice crisp piece of paper. The truth is I never wanted to be a cop, lawyer, ceo, con man, insurance man, yes man, apathetic and pliable man, to be successful or to wait in line for it after the privileged ones got theirs first, stacked in their favor. But I did want to be a good man.

I never wanted corruption, nor religion, nor limitations and lies, nor the doubts or the compromise of my nature to suit the needs of the money machine and bureaucrats. I never wanted any of it except for the freedoms that allow the cheetah to run and hawk to soar. We are driven in the same manner, yet with different hungers and abilities.

What becomes of us when that driving force is given away and hidden? When the bristling intensity and abilities we are born with get replaced with homogenized desires. When the innate is asked to be ignored? How does it affect and eat at us? The voice within never stops yet the mind can thwart and subdue the spirit with doubt and fear. These are branches of the tree that tortured me for many years, until I learned about the root….