I drink a little poison every day. Sometimes I’ll have a sip first thing in the morning, even when I’ve sworn off the stuff. I admit I’m a closet drinker; I have it down to a science – nobody can tell when I imbibe. If it doesn’t hurt anybody else, is there a problem? Except I finally decided that the person it hurts is me, so I’m quitting. For good. Cold turkey. (As much as possible.)
My two favorite poisons are guilt and excuses. Both are instant pick-me-uppers, making me feel better without taking any action. A good guilt trip will keep me going for days and the beauty of it is that I don’t need to do anything. Just thinking about what I’ve done wrong, or what I should have done and didn’t, is enough to maintain my guilty high.
Guilt is the whiskey and excuses are the chaser. I prefer excuses over reasons. Oh, I’ll call them reasons, but they are really the permission slip that allows me to do what I want. The excuse excuses me from blame. Excuses help me point the finger at people, places and things. Excuses allow me to live blameless in my guilt, skipping happily down a road going nowhere.
But I need to get out of this cycle of going nowhere. I’m tired of finding myself weighed down by old dreams and telling myself the same lies about why I carry those burdens.
I’m side-stepping the 12-step program and creating my own 2-step plan:
Step 1: Replace. I intend to replace these two emotional poisons with something real. Guilt will be replaced by remorse. Excuses will be replaced by action.
Step 2: Move On. Stop wallowing. Stop making excuses for myself and others. Step over the debris and keep heading down the path.
It won’t be perfect but I’m not going to use that as an excuse. I’m not going to feel guilty if I slip. Every time I find myself feeling guilty, I’m going to decide if I’m truly remorseful, and if not, then I’ll release the guilt. If I’m truly remorseful, I’ll do what needs to be done – without excuse. When I find myself sipping excuses’ saccharined nectar, I’ll look at what can be done, do it or just move on. Sans excuse.
Why? Life is short and it gets shorter every day. I need to keep moving down my path, not walking in place. My childhood, my physical appearance, my finances, my past failures … none of this holds me in place. This is me and I have today.
Replace. Move on.
This is truly an inspirational post that we can all learn from. We do make excuses for a lot of things, from procrastination to taking the wrong action, then we turn around and feel guilty. But according to the old adage, no use crying over spilt milk, we have to mop up the milk and move on.
Perhaps putting guilt and its operation of excuse making, or rationalization, into its proper emotional matrix, will elucidate its hold. Guilt is not an original emotion. It is the converted form of anxiety. Anxiety is a sort of basic first order emotion which is processed, used to motivate different emotions. One may handle her anxiety by converting it into guilt. Guilt is a sort of pleasure, for though it says “I feel bad for what I did or what I am,” it at least feels certain that its judgment is correct. You have your ideals, and though you don’t live up to them, you still know the truth. Thus guilt is less painful than anxiety, which is by nature uncertain. However, by extending the stress of anxiety, we gain motivational power lacking in guilt. What, after all, is the antithesis of guilt? Guilt regrets are action, but pride celebrates an action. It would be best, insofar as we suffer guilt, to convert it again into pride: to redress our foibles and translate them into proper change. In this, the dynamics of our heart move us to growth and success.
Love the comment about guilt being pleasureable, and still feeling that the action (or whatever) was correct. Love your perspective!
The results of action are never a failure. Action is the engine that leads to success. Taking action always moves you closer to your end goal. When you embrace this fully, you move through action with no fear.