When I was a teenager, I really believed in signs. Billboards with messages like “Chicken nuggets. 99 cents” in front of fast food restaurants could hold the key to my future. Catalogs could come and the fall collection of sweaters could point me in the right direction in my life. Dogs conveyed messages. Conversations could be very, very significant.

I wish that I still believed in signs. I just made a decision not to travel to Thailand during all of this flooding, but I was completely indecisive in making my decision. I went to the post office and bought a book of stamps, and the stamps depicted both the American flag and the Statue of Liberty. This is a completely typical book of stamps, but if I were still in my believing in signs phase, then it would have been affirmation that I’d made the right decision to stay in the United States. It would have been calming, but alas, I’ve stopped relying on order in the universe, or, at the very least, a universe that would conspire to direct the life of a signal individual like me.

I’m sure it was only a deeper inclination towards one decision or another that these so-called “signs” suggested. In fact, it’s been proven that one’s preference for a certain place, idea or thing makes them more likely to see it wherever they are. For example, if I were to buy a Ford Focus car, I would begin to notice all the Ford Focuses driving around because that particular car became specific to me. I’m sure that all the “signs” that I was seeing were always there, but I could now find a context in which they related to me.

There’s something extremely comforting about the universe, or God specifically in a lot of consciousnesses, conspiring to send you a message to direct your life path. It backs you up, somehow, on anything that you want to do, but also makes life infinitely easier. If I had a difficult decision to make, I would look for a sign, and there would be my answer. A lot of religion is based on this idea, I think. Many of my religious friends rely on signs like these to tell them which jobs to take and which career paths to explore. A former co-worker of mine moved from Wisconsin to Washington because she believed that God had sent her.  

What do you think of signs?