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HERE I AM, STRUCK DOWN by another nasty cold virus. I've known this full-blown invasion was impending since I awoke three days ago with the tiniest inkling of a sore throat. It's because the virus fairy gifted my husband with the germs more than a week ago and he's been flinging them hither and yon ever since. Despite all my valiant efforts to sidestep, I've now succumbed and have been doing my own little flowergirl thing with the germs--tossing them in the path of those who come after. What I'd like to do today is to keep my miserable nose-dripping self in bed all day (already well on my way through the morning portion), not taxing my diminished stores of energy and particularly not dropping cold germs in anyone's way.

But is it really what I most want to do? My father (always a fountain of wisdom and wit) used to maintain that one always does what one wants most to do in every situation. Yes, every situation, he argued. (Well, okay, not counting involuntary bodily--oops, excuse me while I sneeze!--things like that.)

I can just hear you sputtering in protest...There are plenty of things I don't want to do at all, but I have to! Yes, I'm sure you could come up with a long list of things you don't want to do, that you wish you didn't have to do. You have to send a big chunk of your hard-earned money to the Infernal Revenue Service, don't you? You have to pay the bills, get the car inspected, take out the garbage, scrub the toilet. I've known folks who think of a root canal as the ultimate torture, yet say they have to get one.

But you know, of course, there's always another option. In every situation there's at least one alternative. Payment of taxes is not an involuntary reflex action (though the government, I'm sure, would be delighted if it were!) You can just not pay. It's a choice. You don't really have to fork over the money. (You're not likely to get more than a life sentence, no matter how egregious your tax evasion.) There are certainly worse things than garbage rotting in the sink, filthy toilets, teeth falling out of your head. They are options. You don't, in actuality, have to get your car inspected. You don't have to pay your bills. Turns out it's what you want to do when considering all consequences. When you think about an unpleasant outcome, you realize the truth in this: whatever you opt to do, in fact, is what you most want to do.

So here I am with my lousy cold and what I want to do is pull the covers over my head and not go to meet the workman who will be showing up at Apartment #59 an hour from now (drywall repair), not run the errands that have been multiplying on my to-do list. I really do want to get some orange juice, however. I guess that means I want to go to the grocery store. Which means I want to get out of bed. There's also the pottery class later today. Do I want to go? And hey, do I want to make dinner?

Hmm. I suppose by the end of the day I'll know...pardon me, another sneeze...what it was I truly wanted to do today.


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