Actually, this would be the second epiphany I've had, but the other one was years and years ago, so I wouldn't really be starting an entry about that one. No, this is a new epiphany.

Now, it's not quite as spiritual/mysterious/inexplicable and unexplainable as the one I refer to above -- I suppose we have degrees of epiphany much like anything else. Still, I suspect that this new awareness must certainly be life-altering, if in no other way than by offering great random potential for influencing other eventualities...

So here's the thing: Way back when I first began this diary, I was (at the request of my therapist) in the midst of a month as a teetotaller... that is, I was drug and booze free, and high on life, and all that.

Actually, as it happens, my quitting drinking for that month pretty much brought anything I might have considered my social life to a screeching halt. Much as I'd been telling my therapist, it wasn't so much that I wanted to drink as often as I did ... just that that's pretty much all my friends do.

And yah, she did suggest I just get new friends.

I reference this all now because towards the end of the Month O' Sobriety, I had an insight that I now see as a precursor to my new epiphany. And it's even documented here, I believe my very second entry: My Friends Are Not My Friends.

So I'd become somewhat aware of that... but, events unfolding as they would, after my month of sobriety I pretty much went back to drinking, because again -- not much of a social life otherwise. (And yeah, I'm aware that that is kinda sad.)

But fastforward to now. I've had a very interesting last few days -- an interesting week, actually. And somewhere in that time began the culmination of an understanding that is simple yet profound, at least in its potential use as a tool.

I've decided that there's no harm no foul, and in fact even perfectly kind, to just tell people, "I don't like you."

Or, in perhaps the most potentially useful variation, "Because I don't like you."

You see, "assertiveness" training and such always seems to focus on training people to say "No." I've always been able to say "No" -- I mean the simple disagreement/negation of whatever someone else just said/suggested/did has never been a problem for me. But somehow -- I can only theorize a connection to my being raised as a "nice" kid, or my own general desire not hurt people's feelings -- however it came about, it never really occurred to me that I could (and should) just tell people, "No. Because I don't like you."

Really, my mind is all afire and my heart is full glee as I consider all the potential benefits of applying this simple rule set to my behavior. "Well, that all sounds fairly swell, and it is even something that I might potentially enjoy doing. However, I must decline to doing this with you. Because, after all, I don't like you."