Living a life of excuses
I’m dealing with someone at work at the moment who has a seemingly endless list of reasons why her work is late. I’m really dying to hear, one day, that she has no excuse and it’s ALL HER FAULT, not the fault of her computer, the weather, the hot water tank at home, a birthday party, a headache or one of the other millions of excuses she’s provided over the past 2 weeks. Her lack of responsibility is driving my stress levels up and there’s nothing I can do other than report her to the bosses and hope they do something about it.
But this brings me to my rant of the day: how can you live your life if you don’t take responsibility for your actions? If you’re constantly blaming outside influences for things that “happen” to you, how can you ever expect anything to improve?
You have choices EVERY SINGLE DAY. Every moment of your life is about choice in some way. Sometimes you have to make the best of a number of bad choices (I have to choose not to throttle the aforementioned co-worker as she still has work to be completed and there’s nobody else on payroll who can do it) but it’s all about choices. I think you lose your sense of identity if you don’t accept that you are in control of your life and your decisions.
This comes into play in all your lifestyle decisions IMO.
Yesterday I had a ‘bad’ day of eating – I made the conscious decision to eat 2 chocolates and a bag of chips. Not because I was hungry. Because I was stressed out. I know that. My body didn’t need the sugar but I chose to eat it. Nobody forced me. In fact, I didn’t really enjoy the chocolate in the evening (but boy did I enjoy the chip at 4pm). Now, I could have used the excuse that because of my workload, I was working a 12 hour day and had eaten my lunch at 1pm. I needed some nourishment.
Sure I did. But did I make the right choice? I knew there was a possibility I’d be working late and my choice should have been to bring extra food. Failing that, I could have chosen to buy some peanuts instead of the chips. But I didn’t. Any weight gain from said choice? My responsibility.
Blaming the world for my misfortunes is not going to make them go away.
I'm a twenty-something Aussie who was living in Canada and has now moved to New Zealand and trying to be somewhat strong and healthy while I navigate the perils of living with my Boy, freelancing and planning a long-distance wedding without losing my mind. Welcome!
