Does This Excuse Make My But Look Big?

Spring is a time for rebirth and regeneration. Whether it’s cutting back the dead limbs in your garden or cleaning out your closets, it’s all about out eliminating the non-productive to make way for the fruitful and useful. It is just as important to weed your mind as it is your physical surroundings, and now is a great time to prune the word “but” from your vocabulary.  Excuses are the mental weeds that strangle any chance at new growth regardless of how many new seeds you plant. Excuses thrive in two kinds of soil. The first are things we will not do despite the direct negative impact of inaction, such as developing a healthier lifestyle. These “buts” are insidious because you just don’t care enough about yourself to take action. The second grows from things we will not stop. This could be allowing negative people to stay in our lives and allowing ourselves to be compromised.  This but is fertilized by the guilt-and-fear excuse and thrives in an enabling personality. I like big buts, I cannot lie; but not anymore. I am a recovered excusaholic, and like any recovered addict, when people come to me and state the same issue or problem over and over I want to scold them like a child only because I know the years of waste and stress it cost me. Excuses are like interest payments. They take away from your principal and you get absolutely nothing in return, not even a write-off.  Oftentimes the only way to get off your but is when the results are so positive or so painful that you must take action. If you keep repeating the same excuses rather than taking action you aren’t at this point yet. It’s that simple. I recently read a statement about the endless circle of repeating excuses as “all retch and no vomit.” How grossly appropriate! When we allow ourselves to be subjected to thankless, negative, or even unethical individuals we become poisoned by them.  It’s not their fault, it’s ours. When we lack the discipline of self esteem to break a negative habit and cling to our big buts we are poisoning ourselves. Excuses are rationalizations and when we rationalize all we are doing is reinforcing our rational lies. Better to be silent than to regurgitate the same old retch over and over again. Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” This includes making excuses. For things to change first you must change. And a big but doesn’t look good on anybody.