excuses, excuses- words, words, words

We are all our own worst critic; work, love (or lack thereof) life, relationships, activities, life in general- everything that we do presents an opportunity to succeed or fail, both of which we do.  No one is perfect, no one is THAT unfortunate (yes, that is a sprinkle of the always positive, upbeat me shining through).  But regardless of our actual performance, we always seem to pick out what didn't go as perfectly as it could have.  And no matter how much positive feedback we get, we still manage to shrug off any and all of the positive the situation and focus in on every minute detail of our failure.

We complain, we get mad, we get angry- we do lots of things that are quite unbecoming but somehow help.  We go to the people we trust and ask for their opinions on the situation and we patiently await their response highlighting all the great things that happened and all the wonderful things we did (and maybe they toss something in that recognizes we weren't perfect...maybe).  No sooner do those words of encouragement leave their lips, we are swatting them down with our hot negativity.  We come back with how it doesn't matter what the circumstances were or what else was going on, we should have been better, faster, stronger, and all those other things Kanye is and we aren't.  We are miserable, well I am when this happens to me.  And what's even worse, bad things tend to happen in groups and (since attitude is everything) we tend to make things worse for ourselves.  It seems like we only have one option as far as how to react, but do we?

In situations where things don't necessarily go your way, you can be one of two things- a victim or a player.  When you take role of the victim, you look at all the things that were working against you and make yourself feel like you had no chance with all these things working against you.  When you take the role of the player, you take full responsibility for everything that happened on yourself.  Throughout life, I was groomed to be a player more so than a victim (because society says players are successful and victims are nothing other than lazy).  It was always about owning my actions, and making it happen regardless of the circumstances.  We all know the sayings: "Rule #76, no excuses play like a champion," "excuses are like... a certain body part (yeah that's good enough), everyone has one and they all stink."  We are groomed to own our flaws and not "take the easy way out" by placing the blame on anything other than ourselves.

But is an excuse ever something more?  Are there ever times where there are things that are simply beyond our control and circumstances really do limit our abilities in some way, shape, or form?  Yeah.  As much as we focus on what we did- or didn't- do and try to take responsibility for everything by dissecting our actions and defining all the things we "could have" done differently to foster a more positive outcome, there are, in fact, some things that we cannot control.  Of course we should take the learning experience for what it is and become better individuals for it, but we can't take it all on.

As with most situation in life, it is about balance.  We have to own our actions while also recognizing the circumstances in which those action must take place.  While we should be proactive and responsible, we also have to give ourselves a break every once in a while.  We can be dedicated and motivated and all of that while also recognizing that we aren't the only variable; keep taking the weight of the world on your shoulders, but know that you can't take responsibility for the few pounds it put on.  Sometimes are excuses are more than words (but only sometimes).