No Excuse for Excuses

Excuse: (noun) a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense.

Recently, I wrote a guest post for my friend Barb’s lovely blog, about how life happens not in the occasional big moments, but in all the ordinary moments in between. And it’s not until we start to engage with these moments on a consistent basis that we see lasting results, or movement in the right direction.

It makes sense, right? It is not until we start showing up to life each day and intentionally doing the “work” that is important to us that we see progress. Daily journaling, prayer and reflecting, exercise, reading, writing, eating healthy, spending time with family, working on that dream. These things that we want (healthy relationships and bodies, fulfilling lives) require daily attention and dedication.

We can’t just expect physical, mental and spiritual health to just happen without any tending on our part. So why is it sometimes so hard to get down into the “dailyness” of life and do what we know will bring us ultimate success and satisfaction? Why is is sometimes easier to think of a reason or explanation to justify a fault?

Some examples from my life lately include me putting every sweet that I come across inside my body, making the excuse that:

• I will get healthy in January (yes, I know it’s now January)
• It’s the season of excess and I don’t drink, so why not have another cookie?
• Sugar makes me happy… and I deserve to be happy!

Also, my knee, which really is hurting me quite annoyingly, is a convenient excuse not to move, when there are plenty of things I could actually do, but:

• It’s too cold outside to bike. (California, cold is 50 degrees)
• Yoga requires me to find my yoga pants and mat, find a suitable class that doesn’t include lots of poses bearing weight on my knee, and actually making it to that mat each day.
• Sitting and reading requires so much less strain on the knee.
• Maybe I’ll just sit and wait. Waiting might make it better. (It also might cause me to end up being 300 pounds!)

Another one is my tendency to put off writing. I know that writing makes me feel good. It is a talent, but still lives in place of mostly untapped potential. Writing is how I best express myself, but it also requires discipline, diligence and the courage to wear my heart on my sleeve, so:

• I think I will write better when my house is perfectly clean and organized. (Aka, never)
• Maybe I should read the words of this great writer (fill in the blank) and then I’ll be inspired.
• I don’t feel like I have anything important or life-changing to say today, so…

Friends, I will admit, there is no excuse for all of my excuses. And yet, excuses are such a human thing and so common that we’ve even invented off-color similes to describe their normalcy.

When I try, not to excuse my excuses, but to understand WHY I constantly make them, I come up with a few reasons.

• I feel like I deserve a reward.
• It’s easier not to.
• I am afraid.

Rewards

So this is a line of thinking I used in my drinking days and it creeps back in with sugar. I use sugar (used to be alcohol) as a reward. I used to drink wine after “a long day,” or “a stressful work situation,” or “to celebrate a something special.” Now that I don’t drink, I use sugar to reward the fact that I don’t drink. A reward for no longer consuming a reward. I can see this now, this stinking thinking, for what it is and that it needs to go.

It’s easier not to

I’ve never considered myself to be a lazy person, per se. I’m a mother of three and a full-time teacher. I am the type who attends to the needs of others before I worry about myself. But, like a fallen leaf resting on the surface of a stream, I take the path of least resistance. Or, like the first part of Newton’s First Law of Motion

• A body at rest remains at rest.

It’s easier to stay the same instead of putting forth the effort to be better.

This is another line of thinking that dominated my life while I was drinking. Excuses (and that stuck feeling) go hand in hand with living the drinking life. It was simply easier for me to stay in my self-created misery than to stand up and walk away. Than to expend the energy to change. Until it wasn’t.

Until I got up and started putting some distance between me and my drinking self…hours, then days, then months. Once in motion, I operated under the second part of Newton’s First Law of motion:

• An object, if in motion, remains in motion at a constant velocity unless acted on by a net external force.

And I’ve been moving away from my old drinking life ever since, praying daily that I am not acted on my that net external force. But those tricky lines of thought like to stick around. The habit of comfort, the habit of ease. Of stagnation. It is easier to be still than grow.

The fact that “it’s easier not to” is an excuse I need to get rid of if I am to build a life I don’t want to escape from.

Fear

This is the excuse that I believe drives much of my self-sabotage, or counter-productive tendencies. It’s why we’ve all got them…excuses, that is. Fear of risk. Of rejection. Of trying as hard as we can, but failing despite it all. It is the reason only few of us live extraordinary lives. Because it’s easier…no, it’s safer, not to.

I attempted to launch my writing career after college, when I was filled with hope and buoyed by the words of my professors. Then came the process of finding literary homes for my work; a process full of rejection letters or simply silence. And I can honestly say, I let my fear of failing stand in the way of pursing a career in writing.

Bidding adieu to excuses

The great ones don’t do that. In his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King describes his days as a young writer and how he tacked his rejection letters to his wall in his writing room, displaying them like badges of honor. He did not let excuses, born of fear, derail his talent and ambition. Granted, he has a creative imagination second to none. But his tenacity, grit and perseverance is what I find myself lusting after.

All of this to say, to myself, with you how have stuck with me thus far as witnesses: there is no excuse for my excuses. All they do is hold me back. They do not serve me in my efforts to create the life I want to live.

So I’m saying goodbye, this year, to reward-based thinking, to the path of least resistance (and least growth), and even to fear. Fear of failure, that is.

I am still, and always will be afraid of a good Stephen King novel.