Good Scents

Whenever I hear someone give a reason for not doing something they say they’d really like to do, I always wonder why. I know why, I just wonder if they do.

It might sound like a perfectly good reason. The fact is that if that particular reasons or excuse is removed, there will be another one underneath it. And another one, like layers of an onion.

Because at the center is “I don’t want to.” That is the only basic reason for not doing something. The reasons for not wanting to can be good ones or silly ones, it doesn’t matter. “I don’t want to” is at the heart of it and beyond that you don’t have to look any farther.
This is because if they really wanted to, they’d already be doing it or making plans to do it; an excuse would be irrelevant! Whatever we really want to do, we set aside the necessary time, money and effort needed to do it. It doesn’t matter if someone else thinks we can’t do it, that doesn’t even come into the picture. Whatever is important to us to do, we find a way to do it.

Now maybe we have told ourselves that we should do something or should want to do something, but we really don’t want to. Maybe we are afraid to, or don’t want to put out the necessary effort. Maybe we don’t think we would like the consequences, or that someone else wouldn’t like it. That’s when we start making excuses for ourselves, to ourselves. This is where the “if only” come into play. If only something were different than what it is, things would be different for us.

Well, yes, if things were different, which they never are, we would be different, which we aren’t. Some how the excuses are meant to make us feel better about who we are and the way things are.

Well, things don’t become different until we make them so. Lying to ourselves is the most harmful lie there is. It keeps us from being able to change ourselves or our situation. What a tangle we get into by not accepting and admitting to ourselves what is really important to us.

To get untangled, a good first step is to stop making excuses to yourself about what you do or don’t do in your life. It doesn’t matter at this point whether you continue to give excuses to other people, although eventually you may want to stop that too. The only person you owe complete honesty to is yourself. If you don’t want to do something, let that be a good enough reason. you may choose to explore your reasons, or not. That can come later. First give yourself the freedom and power of honoring your gut feelings.

Take the pressure off the “shoulds” by examining each one to see if it truly matches with what you feel inside. This is a very good practice, learning how you really feel without making excuses for it. If you see something in yourself that you don’t like, you can always work on changing that, but not as long as you are making excuses. Gently push aside the excuses and look at what is the truth about how you feel. If the truth becomes too scary you can always cloak it again with excuses, but that doesn’t change the truth, only your perception of it. And no one says you have to look at the truth if you don’t want to, just don’t bother with the excuses!

DONNA METCALFE is the owner of Good Scents, a metaphysical bookstore in Redlands, CA. Her book: Collected Works: a book for the Eclectic Spirit, a collection of her essays is now available at Good Scents and other fine bookstores!

Visit Good Scents' website at: http://home.earthlink.net/~goodscents/

Goodscents - 461 D. Tennessee • Redlands, CA 92373 • 909-335-6160

Sept/Oct 2002

Good Scents - Redlands

Excuses

by Donna Metcalfe