Responsibility and Excuses

It’s been some time since I have posted so I thought I would pop in for a spell to share something that has been on my mind lately. I don’t have much time today so I’ll get right to it.

With great responsibility comes great power. Wait, isn’t that backwards? Well, I’m not so sure it is.

When we embrace our path and grasp our role in the universe with both hands, we become empowered to do great things. When we align ourselves with who we were intended to become, simply as a side effect we will become stronger in both mind and in body. Our presence is more grand, we stand taller, we are more likely to smile, to sigh at the simple beauty of the world, to breathe deeply and to do more than just see our surroundings, we will live within them and we will create them to be what we wish them to be. Instead of allowing the world to take us places, we will take the world places.

When we are in the right place, we naturally become more confident, as we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are just where we are supposed to be and that knowing can bring tremendous comfort. Things that were difficult, suddenly become easy.
That feeling of calm and security with all things does not come without its price, however.

Bliss does not come without its responsibility. One must work at bliss.

Anyone who tells you the road to happiness is a straight and paved one, is either lying to you or has never seen it for themselves. The road is rocky, treacherous and dangerous. The demons of stagnation, doubt and fear lurk around every corner and will try to trip you, confuse you and take you away from your goal. The fog of indecision will come down upon you and you may loose your way and the great and terrible "what if" will rear its ugly head and breathe fire at your toes, screaming at you to "GO BACK!" like a terrible monster from a childhood nightmare.

The path is never a clear and easy one. The path will make you forget, and playing the role of Tom Bombadil, will show you how much easier it would be if you just stopped, had a quiet picnic on a grassy knoll and let time go by. The path will try to shelter you from storms- it will cover you with thick woods on either side, beckoning you to just stay a while longer… it’s cold and wet out there… there’s mud and wind… just stay… and sooner than you think, years have gone by Rip Van Winkle... and what did you do with all that time?

You have to be honest with yourself about what you want, enough to be willing to say no when the path wants to stop you. You must keep your wits about you and the sword of truth at your side. You have the ultimate responsibility, the one that is so very simple to ignore- the one that leads you to your own happiness.
But if you embrace it, you will gain great power.

If you choose not to, always remember- it was always your choice.

Now, on that note- Synchronicity happened and I randomly found an entry from a journal by Donna Metcalfe. She ws the owner of a shop called Good Scents in Redlands, CA. She was one of my biggest inspirations growing up and this is an entry from her blog. It still rings true and is well worth the read.

This find was proof that yes, the path may be cunning in trying to convince you to stand still, but it sometimes does show you signposts that you are still on your way in the right direction.

~

Excuses
by Donna Metcalfe
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!