Follow Your Gut

I had an experience the other day that taught me once again the importance of listening to that "little voice". I have had more extreme experiences that were more obvious, but this one, because it wasn't so extreme took me some time to fully appreciate. But it reminded me just how important it is to listen to our gut.

My house cleaner, Ling Ling, took my daughter and me to a new shopping area not too far away. She told me that this place would have anything I could want to eat, wear, or use in my house. On the day that we went, I only bought vegetables. It was an amazing market! It was a building about the size of an American Walmart. But imagine that instead of aisles of goods, it was filled with tables full of vegetables! A vegetarian's heaven! After we were done buying vegetables, we walked outside the building and went to find a taxi.

Ling Ling pointed to the building behind us as we walked away. She pointed to the several floors above, and told us that we could come back and shop in there. She said that there were a lot of merchants on the upper floors. We determined to come back another day to explore.

When my daughter and I went back a few days later, we decided to go in through one of the front doors. As we came to the second floor, we could see that it was closed down, and there were no shops there. So we continued on to the next floor. As we walked, we noticed some advertisements glued to the steps. They advertised a karaoke bar upstairs. As we got closer, we could hear the music, and see the flashing lights. My daughter said, "This is a karaoke bar. I don't want to go there." I said, "But Ling Ling said there are shops up here too. Let's just look." When we got to the floor, we could see several different kinds of shops. One was a beauty shop. One was an arcade. We couldn't really tell what the other ones were, but we both had an uncomfortable feeling. We couldn't see any evidence, but we both could feel that this place wasn't good. It just felt creepy. We saw an elevator at the end of the hall, so we made a bee line for it, and went back downstairs. As we turned the corner, we found the place we had been hoping to find, and shopped around for a little while.

The next day I asked Ling Ling about that floor. I told her that we had felt uncomfortable there. She told us that indeed, it wasn't a good place. She said that a lot of "illegal things" happen there. She said the Karaoke bar deals in drugs, and that other bad things go on up there. I don't know why she forgot to mention this to us before! I asked her if the police knew about this place. She said they do, but that the shop keepers pay their "fees", so the police allow them to remain.

But isn't it interesting that even though my daughter and I did not know the details, and couldn't see any evidence of illegal activity, we could still feel that it wasn't a good place? I'm glad I listened to that "little voice", and that we didn't hang around. Have faith in that voice. It will always lead you the right direction.