Way Back No. 14
Bigger or Smaller
One question.
It will save you months.
Next time you’re deciding
about someone,
first date
or fifteenth year,
skip the courtroom.
Ask this instead.
When I’m with them,
am I bigger,
or smaller?
Not happier.
Happy is easy to fake
for an evening.
Bigger,
or smaller.
More me,
or less me.
Your body answers
instantly.
Expansion,
or contraction.
The glow,
or the static.
You’ve spent this whole book
learning to read that signal.
It works on people too.
Trust it.
The ones who make you bigger,
keep.
The ones who make you smaller,
bless them,
and give them back
to the game.
From chapter fourteen
What usually happens
The body answers before you finish asking. The courtroom then opens anyway, arguing with the verdict. You do not have to attend.
Expect one answer you did not want. That is the question working. It saves you months precisely because it will not flatter you.
One line to carry
Bigger, or smaller.
If someone came to mind
Some people read this page and think of one person the whole way through.
If that happened, send them back to themselves. It costs them nothing.
The other Ways Back are in their chapters, one per chapter, all of them free. This one is yours whenever you need it.