We have reached the halfway point of this Lenten season and this morning I went back and reread my entry from Ash Wednesday. Some reflections on the past two and a half weeks:
Giving up excuses has been more difficult than I thought. (In fact, I almost started out this blog with an excuse about how I'm not nearly as talented as some of my writer friends!) Some of the things I used to say including "Oh, I didn't get that email/text message/phone call because my phone is being weird" or "Sorry I'm late, I got half way out the door and forgot (insert item here)" were blatant, outright lies and they were the easy ones to cut out. I was really late for youth group last night and when asked about my tardiness, I told the truth. It had been a mess of a day, and I just hadn't watched the clock close enough. It was my fault, not my car's or my phone's or my parent's dogs.
So, the difficulty has not come out of the actual speaking of an excuse as so much the internal conflict and debate that I face when trying to decide if something is an excuse or not. I have lied to myself and to others for so long that its takes me a long time to distinguish between the truth and an excuse.
-Did I really not lose any weight this week because I'm bloated due to my cycle or was it because I didn't eat as healthy as I should?
-Did I run late to work this morning because I was sooooo tired from last night and I just couldn't get out of bed or was it because I watched the Today Show for 5 minutes longer than I should this morning?
I make so many excuses and tell so many little white lies, I don't even know when I am doing it. Making excuses has become a reflex that I am now having to rethink. We try and get to the root of it, I think my amazing ability to make excuses comes from my fear of having to take responsibility. I just came out a fairly frustrating job where I never fully understood what my responsibilities were so I was constantly confused and frustrated and forced into making excuses on the spot because I didn't know what I was doing. I have some selective perfectionist tendencies and when things are not just right, I make an excuse instead of giving a honest update about how things are progressing.
Not making excuses to other people has been a difficult lesson and I find myself pausing (A LOT) before I respond to questions now. But even harder than my interactions with other humans, is my interactions with myself.
I have gotten REALLY good at lying to myself. I am a very self defeating person and I tend to make excuses for things even before I attempt them.
- There is no point in me making dinner tonight because I'm sure Sam won't like it.
- Why should I even bother with going to the gym? I'm always going to be a fat ass anyway.
- What' the point in even looking for a job when I know that 40 million other people will be applying for it as well?
It's been a struggle to end this constant lying. Most of my excuses come down to an "I'm not good enough" attitude. I applied to grad school this past winter and came out of my audition feeling like a million bucks and thinking that I really had a chance. When 6 weeks went by and I still hadn't heard anything, I was crushed. Now, on my Lenten journey, I don't really know what the answer is to why I didn't get in. It sounds so cliche to say "It wasn't God's will/plan/choice for me" or "This must not be God's timing so I'm at peace" so I started looking for the straight answer and the only one I could come up with was I AM NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Ouch. The dream and career that I have chased since I was a little girl has now ended simply because I'm not good enough? I came out of that theatre having left everything on the table. I gave the best audition that my education, my brains, and my talent could have provided me and in the end, why didn't I get in? What is the truth and what is merely a lie that I tell myself because I want to feel better or because I don't feel worthy?
This post has definitely turned towards the verbal vomit side of blogging, but I guess the main point is:
Through this Lenten season I have discovered (and I am still discovering) that I have a serious problem with making excuses not only to other people, but also to myself. This is no longer just a 40 day journey to the cross where I give up something that makes me a little uncomfortable for a while before reverting back to the way life was. We may be at the half way mark for Lent, but frankly, I am just beginning.
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