Voices in my head

Sometimes I hear voices, insistent ones. They’re not evil, at least I don’t think they are, because they remind me of the gang I used to run with in middle school. We weren’t evil, although a number of female classmates probably thought so, but you could fairly say that the whole equaled something significantly less than the sum of the parts. That’s what the voices are like. Let me show you.

• Voice: “Eat it.” I really hate this guy. I can’t resist him because in 47 years of gastronomic experimentation I have only met two foods I didn’t like, and I’m reconsidering those. I even liked MREs. At home where the options on the table are limited, as are the quantities, this is less of a problem, but at the Chinese buffet? I know I’ll hate myself later.
• Voice: “There’s a girl! Speed up.” This is really stupid, because it’s just a twitch left over from high school – they don’t notice me and I don’t care. The element of surprise and my knee-jerk reaction make me completely susceptible, though, which means when college is in session that halfway through my run my wheezing steams up passing car windows and I have to hold my head sideways to keep from stepping on my tongue. Dawn laughs.
• Voice: “Tiger could do it.” I hear this guy only when I’m in the rough trying to stick the green between a near bunker and a far water hazard, which I can barely see through a small gap in the trees. Which means about once a hole. Immediately after my ball ricochets between several trees and comes to rest 15 feet behind me, I hear the voice saying “Hahahahahahaha!!!!”
• Voice: “Just for a second.” After lunch, warm quiet office, full belly, spreadsheet on the monitor, eyes drooping. Not good, not good at all. This dude is trying to get me fired. Fortunately I have my boss convinced that’s what I do when I’m thinking.
• Voice: “Just look. You don’t have to buy anything.” This one must live next to Best Buy, because I never hear him anywhere else. If I thought for just a minute I’d catch the lie; in that store, you do too have to buy something.
• Voice: “Dawn won’t catch on.” What, she can’t tell I goofed off while she was gone by the laundry wrinkling in the dryer and the dishes in the sink? This guy thinks I’m stupid. He’s right.
• Voice: “Just pick it up, you wimp. It’s not that big.” The fact that I ever listen is proof of near-term memory loss, because after ten years of quarterly chiropractor visits you’d think I would know that my back isn’t what it used to be. Funny thing is, I tend to do this more often when Dawn is there to help than when she isn’t. In a less mature individual that might be ego, but in this case I just can’t figure it out.

These are all male voices, as you can probably tell by what they’re saying. All guys, and their voices are all very, very similar to mine. Hmmm . . .
There is one voice that’s different though, maybe the only true friend of the bunch. This one has never gotten me in trouble, not even once. This is the one that says things like, “Just because you’re mad doesn’t mean he’s stupid,” and “Be faithful today to the man you want to be tomorrow,” and “Schedule doesn’t matter as much as people.” And “God loves you anyway, so get up, dust off and try again.”
This voice is female; she goes by the Greek name Sophia, Wisdom in English, and you can read all about her in the first part of Proverbs. She doesn’t shout, but if you listen you can hear her just fine, and she uses simple words even a dummy like me can understand. She has never steered me wrong, not once in the decades I’ve known her, which would make you think I’d listen more often. Ah well, get up, dust off . . .