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Article:
Using Excuses to Avoid Fun – By Ted Schredd ***
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Excuses stop you from having more fun, more love and
more good times in
your life. That’s the only thing they do. We’re
presented with unlimited
opportunities to do see and experience life. Go here, go
there, and go
everywhere. The problem is we just can’t do everything,
so we say no to
plenty of potential joy.
Here are the most popular fun-avoiding excuses:
Excuse Number One: I’m too old for that. You are nevër
too old to enjoy
anything; you will just enjoy different things. Besides,
when exactly does
“too old” take place? At twenty, thirty, forty, fifty,
sixty, seventy?
There are seventy-year-old triathletes, skydivers,
skiers, university
students and mountain climbers. Look, there are senior
citizens kicking
butt all over the planet. Don’t let your butt be on the
receiving end of
those kicks. You are only too old when you’re dead.
Excuse Number Two: My health is no good, so I’m unable
to participate.
Well, tell that to cancer survivor Lance Armstrong after
he won the Tour
De France. Tell that to Rick Hansen, who pushed his
wheelchair around the
world. If you stop living because of your perceived
restrictions, you are
the only loser. Fun people say regardless of what ails
me I am going to
give it a go. They don’t believe physical ailments or
disabilities will
hold them back.
Excuse Number Three: I’ve never tried... walking on hot
coals, Argentinean
tango, speaking Norwegian, riding a camel or acting on
stage, and I don’t
want to look stupid trying something I’ve never done
before. Every minute
of every day, somebody, somewhere is doing something
they’ve never done
before, just once. Oddly enough, it’s the only way to
try something new.
Excuse Number Four: I already tried that, and I didn’t
enjoy myself. When
you were a child learning to walk, did you quit because
it didn’t work out
the first few times you tried it? Or do you still crawl
everywhere you
travel? If you’ve given something a good effort and you
still hate it,
dust yourself off and move on to the next challenge.
Excuse Number Five: I don’t have the time. Everybody has
the same amount
of time. It’s just how people use it. If you say you
have no time for fun,
then you just haven’t made fun a priority.
Excuse Number Six: It costs too much. There are plenty
of activities that
cost next to nothing: a picnic at the park, a walk by a
lake, a romp at
the playground or even a romp in the sack. If you really
have your heart
set on an expensive activity, all you have to do is ask
what will it take
for this to happen? Could you get a part-time job, trade
some service you
can perform with someone else, borrow the equipment, buy
the equipment
second-hand? Fun people don’t shut down a possibility
because it’s too
expensive. Instead of saying “no” they just ask “How?”
Excuse Number Seven: I won’t know anybody. You don’t
know anybody, so you
stay home, which helps you to solidify your belief that
you don’t know
anybody. Fun practitioners are excited to meet new
people. Maybe they can
add to their list of playmates. The only way you get to
know people is to
get to know people.
Excuse Number Eight: It’s too dangerous. It’s probably
ten times more
dangerous crossing the street or driving to work than
most adventure
activities ever could be. If you do a little research,
get some
instruction and get the proper safety equipment --
you’ll be fine.
Excuse nine through twenty-six: Life is supposed to be a
struggle. That’s
childish. My dog wouldn’t approve. I have to do it the
old way. I’m too
intelligent and mature to be having fun. My head is too
big. But the
animals will get me. You need special training for that.
They don’t sell
pork there. I can’t play with them because they’re a
different religion. I
would but I’m just too fat. I’m too scared. I smell. The
weather is always
bad. If only I had a million dollars, then I could have
some fun. I don’t
have the right clothes. I might hurt myself. Someone
might laugh at me. Or
whatever other excuse works for you.
Excuses seem perfectly valid in the eyes of those who
create them, but in
reality they’re ridiculous. When you use excuses, you
repel the very fun
people and situations that can bring you happiness. If
you truly believe
you’re too old, what do you think will happen? You’re
just going to get
older and older. If you’ve decided you don’t want to
feel stupid trying a
new activity, then why bother trying it in the first
place, right?
Eventually your excuses will solidify into beliefs, and
unfortunately,
changing your beliefs is a little more challenging. Best
to nip this
situation in the bud before the excuses harden into
beliefs. So how the
heck does one stop this chronic excuse thing?
Begin by admitting the truth -- you are responsible for
the level of fun
in your life. Everything that is around you -- your
house, your lovers,
your job and your circumstances -- is a direct result of
you and the way
you think. So many people look outside themselves to
blame or excuse
themselves from their reality, but it takes courage for
people to accept
responsibility.
Avoiding responsibility by making excuses takes away
your personal power
and leaves you open to further anxieties. Blaming
somebody or some entity
will NEVËR solve the problem. Blame the world, blame the
government, blame
the farmers, blame the little goat at the zoo -- it’s
all their fault.
Anything, any statement to deflect the real root of the
problem. To think
that other people or the government are responsible for
fixing your life
is silly. It only prolongs the inevitable fact that only
you can make your
life great, fun and delicious.
The great leaders in history were always able to take
responsibility.
Unfortunately, there have not been that many great
leaders. Most leaders
these days just deny and deflect responsibility. They
use a political
sleight of hand to retain their power and put the focus
somewhere else. It
was the Republicans, the Democrats, the economy, the
weather, the local
government, the FBI, the police, the whites, the blacks
and on and on. We
have very few responsible role models in our political
system. It seems as
if the only people in our society who think they don’t
need to take
responsibility are the politicians and the celebrities.
Our culture rewards lack of responsibility. Do you
remember the case of
the “I drank hot coffee and I’m suing McDonald’s”?
Somebody went to
McDonald’s, ordered a coffee, drank it and found it was
too hot. So they
decided to sue McDonald’s. Isn’t coffee supposed to be
hot?
Here’s another example. A woman sued Universal Studios
because, she said,
the theme park Halloween Horror Nights Haunted House was
too scary for her
and caused her emotional distress. In a different
pitiful example of
responsibility avoidance, the family of a man who
drowned on a fishing
trip sued the Weather Channel for ten million dollars
claiming that the
man was tricked by the station’s storm-free forecast. At
Disneyland, a man
drove into his fiancée on the bumper car ride. The
injured woman then sued
Disneyland and her own fiancée. OK, just one more. Some
people have a
party. Guests come over and drink. The hosts offer a
free cab ride but the
drunken visitor refuses. Mr. Party Pants decides to
drive, crashes his
car, blames the hosts and sues.
Yes, there are plenty of situations where companies or
individuals need to
be punished for unacceptable behavior. But the coffee is
too hot? The
Halloween night is too scary? The weather forecast is
wrong? The bumper
cars are too bumpery? Oh my God, that’s terrible. You
must get a lawyer
and sue. The lawyers and litigants in these frivolous
lawsuits should be
given a slap upside the head and a stupid ticket. I
don’t understand why
they haven’t tried to sue God for making the cliffs too
cliffy and the
tornadoes too twisty. The media help out by highlighting
these stories of
ridiculous litigation. Their barrage of “blame experts”
can find fault
with anyone and anything. We being the information
sponges that we are
believe them word for word. Then it sets off a frenzy of
copycat
litigation. If they can sue over hot coffee, what could
I sue for? When
people are truly responsible, they can’t admit it for
fear of being sued.
If we can’t take responsibility for drinking coffee
that’s too hot for us,
then how can we ever take responsibility for our own
happiness?
You have the choice to take responsibility for your
life. You are wherever
you are in this moment in your life because you brought
yourself there.
Evaluate your job, your friends, your lovers or lack of,
where you have
been and where you are going. You created it all. Good
or bad, you are
responsible. Then imagine where you would like to go.
Then think of all
the excuses you have used in the past. Taking
responsibility allows you
the freedom to grow. No excuse can ever justify you not
discovering,
exploring, adventuring, laughing and enjoying your life.
There are more
than enough roadblocks to happiness in your life. Why
ensure that it won’t
happen with the habitual use of excuses?
About the Author:
Author Ted Schredd has been a fun researcher for the
past fifteen years.
Ted wrote "Gramma Knows the F Word"- How adults can
discover more fun in
their life - to inspire people to enjoy their lives.
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