That Magnum P.I. Voice in My Head

Do you have an inner voice? I sure do, I call it that Magnum P.I. voice in my head. Don't get me wrong, I don't go around calling my roommates Higgins or anything like that. It's far more simple, more like a life guide.

I didn't always have it, I guess the mind always absorbs what it's exposed to. As a young boy I had that Buckwheat voice in my head. It was nice because I could ask myself things like "my brothers being really mean to me, should I smash all of his toys?" To which the Buckwheat inner voice would reply "Otay!". Or "Should I feed this liver my mommy gave me to the dog so it looks like I finished it?" "Otay!" It always went my way. But I found as I got older the Buckwheat voice wasn't really looking after my preservation. When it came to "Should I jump into the water off of this railway trestle?" He just said "Otay!" to everything.

When I was 11 we went to some friends of my parents for New Year's Eve. The parents were doing whatever it was parents did at that time. It's funny...now that I think about it they were my age that night. Whatever. The kids gathered in the rec room to watch the boob tube. There was a new show that had started a few weeks earlier that hadn't garnered a lot of viewers, so CBS was giving it another shot by replaying the 2 hour pilot on New Year's Eve. It was a hit that night, and Magnum P.I. was born. The lead had this tendency to make inner soliloquies, analyzing situations, or reflecting memories. Goodbye Buckwheat, hello Magnum.

It was life changing. Instead of getting an "Otay!" response to "Should I jump into the water off of this railway trestle?" I would get "The railway trestle represented all the fears I had in my youth, the steel was as cold and as hard as the memories of my father. While I wanted to jump off the trestle to show off to my friends, I wasn't going to let the trestle win. That would be like letting my father win." Way better than "Otay!", and I'm probably still alive now because of it.

It has guided me through every part of my life, from love, to career. And I think it's done one bang up job. It has got me out of an amazing number of bad situations. Just like the trestle, I probably owe it my life a few times over. Even in social settings it will guide me. Take tonight for example. Say it's 9 0'clock, and I'm at the bar. The server asks me if I would like another. I stare at the glass for a moment, and get that smile at the corner of my mouth, the twinkle in my eyes. This is the next level, these are the moments when you check baggage and get your ya ya's out. But then the voice kicks in. "That blond across from you? She's going to hit the floor any moment. That buddy of yours sitting beside you, you haven't understood a word he has said in two hours. The guy sitting across from him that won't shut up, his words are eating at your brain like a termite on wood. Ohh, and look who just walked in the door. Pull the chute Johnny, pull it!!"

And that's it, I leave. Common sense prevails. The voice always wins. And I always wake up in the morning feeling better for it. So support your inner voice, feed it, let it speak. It's got your back, and these days we need all the help we can get.