This is really my most insidious habit, and the root of most of the things that I’d like to change about myself….sticking to things once I start. I will really start to feel good, after a few weeks of regular exercise. I will start to notice it when I climb stairs. Maybe even my wife makes a comment, or my daughter. And yet, despite the internal and external positive feedback, I simply stall out. I quit. The opportunity to stop presents itself, and instead of working overtime to stick with it….I simply let it go. If I have an all day meeting, instead of waking up early to get in the exercise, I let it slide….one day at a time is OK….I get that, but for me, the loss of momentum is profound….If one day ever turns into to 2 or 3 days, then it will almost assuredly turn into 2 or 3 months…and back to square one we go!
Maybe this is just who we are now. We want quick simple gratification. We don’t want to work for anything. We want fast food, easy money, quick fixes, overnight sensations and love at first sight. Expressions like “short attention span theater”, “the MTV generation” and “Quick Lube Oil Change” are permanent fixtures in the lexicon of our language. Folks, we want it fast. I have been exercising for 7 days now…aren’t I done yet?
The problem with a good excuse is that it often rings true in the moment. If I decide to get some exercise, my mind might race to any one of the following gems: I am too tired, it is too hot, I am hungry, I do not have time, my head hurts, I am expecting a phone call, I should go get gas in the car, there is a lunar eclipse next week, weekends should be three days instead of two, there is nothing good on TV. At one time or another, all of those statements have been true, and it is also possible that they have all been true at the same time. It suggests the range of legitimate and ridiculous things that creep into my mind when I am trying to rationalize why I am not doing something I wanted, or needed, to do.
Sometimes, the fact that the excuse is wholly unrelated to the task I am excusing myself from, does not occur to me until well after the fact. I have opted not to exercise because I have an early morning meeting (leaving me, conveniently the entire day to exercise once the meeting is over). I have opted not to wear sun block because I left it at home, when in truth, there is almost always someone in attendance at our various outdoor activities that has an ample supply. Sun block is one of the things that is shared willingly, generously and sometimes even, forcibly. Forgetting the sun block is not an excuse. The fact that I invariably get sun block in my eyes at some point during a day in the sun may well be a reason to buy sun block that does not hurt the eyes, but it still does not defend skipping the task altogether.
Excuses offer us the illusion of having choices. We may not want to do something, so we offer up an excuse to give ourselves an alternative that is more appealing. “I cannot help you move on Saturday because I am going to the beach, where I will apply sunscreen liberally.” Often times these “excuses” are simply facts resulting from a busy life which many of us “enjoy”. “I cannot go to the ballet on Saturday because I already have tickets to college football game that afternoon, much as I’d love to see the ballet.” Sometimes the choices are hard, sometimes they are easy…
But it is also, sometimes a reflection of how we’d rather spend our time, and this can be touchy. This is where excuses can veer into the territory of outright lying. I don’t want to attend the ballet, because I do not like the ballet, and so, if invited, I say I have plans that evening, as opposed to saying “the ballet sucks”, or “I cannot imagine spending even one moment of my life span watching ballet” which, though true, would be rude and sort of implies an unnecessary disagreement. I understand that people like the ballet and that is just fine….How do you decline something like that without creating debate.
Even if I decide to find a gentle way to take the high road and decline to go to the ballet because I am not interested, it invites the response “Have you ever been? You might really like it!” To this response there are two possible outcomes. First of all, it is so doubtful that “I might really like it” as to be laughable…but what if I do really like it? What if I love it and crave it and want to return as soon as possible? Do I really need some other thing to fill up time in my life? I have my kids and all their activities (none of which, happily, include ballet), I have work, and at least 3 organizations I volunteer time to. I like sports…attending sporting events, watching sports on TV, and I live in a house that is marking its 100th anniversary, and hence it could always use a helping hand somewhere. I spend time with friends, and my kids and their friends, and it seems like I have no time for some other activity that I enjoy…like ballet. Though I have always been curious about Robot Wars….
Sometimes we have excuses that are misconstrued as attempts to wiggle out of a task or commitment that we don’t want to do. Odd sounding excuses seem to fall easily into this category, even if completely true. The first date I ever had with my wife had to be postponed because my dog had suffered a stroke a couple of days prior. I needed to be with my family, and sit with the dog that evening, because we feared she would not survive the night. This kind of excuse assumes that everyone loves dogs as much as my family does. My wife, to her credit, did not hold this against me for too long, but it was not an easy excuse to offer, initially.
But no matter what, an excuse carries some implied debit, as if using an excuse to get out of doing something reduces your stature in some, even infinitesimal way. An “excused absence” means you gave a reason why you did not attend, but you were still “absent”. You missed something you were supposed to be a part of, and even though you had, perhaps, a good reason for not being there.
The best excuse is the one that cannot be rejected. You have to be careful using these. They are often unverifiable and usually involve some sort of urgency or illness. “I cannot attend the dinner party on Friday because we must go to a funeral out of town”. Slam dunk. You are out of that engagement…just be sure you have a name and relationship ready for the inevitable “Oh I’m sorry to hear that…who died?”
It is difficult to offer these kinds of excuses to your personal self help regime unless they are entirely truthful. “I cannot exercise because my grandmother died” is ineffective if it is not true. It may not even be a good excuse if true. Personal excuses carry the burden of needing to be entirely truthful, but have the advantage of always getting the benefit of doubt. “I cannot exercise because my feet hurt” can derail a planned exercise session if given enough credibility, and since you only have to convince yourself…the person with the sore feet…it seems a near certainty that you will be swayed.
Unfortunately though, this is where I have the most trouble, and this is the habit I must break free of today…I allow these little internal excuses to derail too many commitments in my life. “I cannot exercise today, because I must write”. Seems reasonable, but a well organized person, committed to the importance of both, would plan his day accordingly. “I cannot write today because I have a dentist appointment” is also a matter of time management, and I find that most excuses are driven by some lack of time. If we had infinite hours in each day, we could find time for everything. In truth, we may have 17-18 hours, at the most, to do all we want or need to do in a day. It is a surprisingly small amount of time.
Excuses, then, are also a kind of tradeoff…a negotiation with ourselves to address the finite amount of time we have…today, this week, and in our lifetimes. We can measure the amount of hours we have in a day, and a week, but since we do not know how much time will make up or lifetimes, we must negotiate vigilantly to avoid spending too much doing that which has no meaning to us. And we must also make sure we allow proper time for the stuff that truly matters, and acknowledge that sometimes there is not even enough time in a day to do what we really want to do.
I propose then to examine my priorities each day, starting with family, work, and my personal goals, and prioritize accordingly. I will try to make certain that my excuses are legitimate reasons as opposed to time management decisions that favor laziness or a lack of organization. This sounds a bit like the swearing habit (Life Change # 3: I swear (way) too much). A noble goal but difficult to measure and prone to minor or even major slip ups. However, if I do mess up, I’ll have a really good excuse---if it were not for bad habits, I’d have no habits at all!
Update on Previous Life Changes (Day Seven):
Memo to self: On hot days, in which I am sweating, be careful not to rub your eyes while wearing sun block. Sort of like getting shampoo in the eyes…a sting that lasted the better part of 10 minutes. Sure made tanning sound fashionable. Though I got in my required water intake,(again, the heat and the time spent outside made 4 or 5 32oz Nalgene bottles go down easily), I also added some lemonade and a cherry snow cone to the liquid intake…totally worthwhile misadventures.
I pushed through the couple of weeks of my bad habit elimination regime with mixed, but overall, decent success. As expected, I have had more slip ups with swearing than any other Life Change. I doubt I have been able to go an entire day without uttering one of the words that John Stewart has edited out. But I have grown aware of saying them…they do not slip out along with the rest of the words, and so I’d say my swearing has reduced dramatically, and I hope, I will maintain this awareness and gradually swear less and less.
I did get in at least 30 minutes and sometimes closer to 45 minutes of quality exercise each day, and though no tangible results in terms of weight loss or appearance, I do feel better...more energetic, more alert. I also found that introducing 96-128 ounces of water each day was not as hard as I thought, and I find this to be a change that already seems integrated into my daily regime. No more standing with the refrigerator door opening searching for something to drink…I keep my water bottles in the freezer, and when one is done, I go get another. I actually find myself vaguely thirsty, so it is never something I have to force myself to do…my body has quickly started to appreciate all the water I am consuming.
I did yell at a guy in an intersection today, to stop smoking. I was doing a u-turn and saw him as I had revered direction and drove past him as he waited to either do a u-turn or turn left. There is no doubt that he thinks I am crazy….and those who could hear me thought that as well….it just seems odd to hear someone scream, randomly, “STOP SMOKING!!!” at strangers on the street. I have no idea if this helped him stop smoking or not, but at least he did not follow me and run my car off the road. I consider this to be a signal that he is open minded about the need to stop smoking.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Good words.
Post a Comment