Welcome to Gaia! ::

"See you later!"

"Hi hi! Hard day?"

"Ah," Anna nods, "I suffer from the same affliction, sometimes, cherie."

"That would be a mistake," Anna says, shaking her head sadly, "The people who commit the most horrible crimes against the world or other people are those who have for whatever reason stopped thinking, or stopped caring, or both. You don't wanna be one of those people. As tough as it can be sometimes, thinking, and caring, is what will make us part of the solution, and not just another part of the problem.

"Advice is a gift you should never give with the expectation that it will be followed cherie," Anna says, "Everyone is and should be responsible for the decisions they make in their own lives. You can offer suggestions to them, but you cannot tell them the path to take. If you do try to help someone, and they spurn your help and get hurt, then they have made their choice, and you cannot hate them for it. Your choice is now to either kick them while they're down for not listening to you, or offer them a hand back up without any 'I told you so's'." Anna shrugs, "We are our choices, so you decide what kind of friend you're going to be."

"Then that would be your choice," Anna says, putting a hand on your shoulder, "And who you are is defined by your choices. What you have to ask yourself is this - is that the kind of person you want to be? Or, against all of the hardships, despite all of the thousands of times your hand is gonna get smacked away, do you want to be the kind of person who reaches out that hand to people that need it? Just for that one in a million chance that that hand actually makes a difference in someone's life."

Anna sighs, "You know, I'm a horrible person to come to for advice. I am incapable of lying, and incapable of just patting your head and telling you that it's all gonna be ok. What I speak is god's own truth, weighted down by years of experience in school, combat, work and life - or at least what I think the truth is. I can't tell you that, despite all the times you're gonna get pushed away, it's still worth reaching out, because I don't honestly know that it is. But I can tell you that that is the choice I made - the choice to keep offering that hand just in case someone needs it, no matter how many times it's been burnt, beaten, shot and worse. Oh, I get frustrated at times, oui, but I made my choice a long time ago. And it's who I am."

"Pfft, I've had almost thirty years, and I still don't know who I am," Aena shrugs, "It changes with every decision I make. Anyway, you're right. Take some time, take a break if you have to, let life settle around you, and then make your choice. It's better to take more time to make a good choice than to make a bad choice quickly."

"Hell yeah," Anna laughs, "I've made some doozies. And I've made many, many more that were disastrous, but I don't know if I had to do things over again, if it would do things any different. C'est la vie."