But . . . The Cop-Out
Stories. We love stories – hearing them, telling them, reading them. But we especially love crafting and repeating bullshit stories about why we can’t get something done or see something we committed to do through. Those stories also go by other names such as excuses, alibis, justifications, defenses, and rationalization.
My creativity spans many genres and storytelling is one of them. I admit that I have told countless stories in my life – to others and myself. Mostly badly crafted fiction, convincingly packaged. However, in this decade of my life, some of those stories are returning to haunt and taunt me and I am forced to face their frivolity head-on. Partly because ‘consequences are grandchildren’ (as the ancestors used to say) and I’m old enough to have some. And partly because the complexities of reality do not allow me to continue on a particular trajectory.
An article I read this week brought to my awareness that this gift of storytelling is more universal than I could imagine so I’m sure today’s musings will hit a chord with someone.
Once upon a time, my favorite cop-out story started with ‘there’s not enough time’ until I came across a small audiobook written in 1910 by Arnold Bennett. How To Live On 24 Hours A Day reminded me that the gift of time was dished out equally to all and sundry and at the end of the day, some people returned a loss, others a profit. The secret to returning a three, five, or even ten-fold profit lay in knowing what you wanted to achieve and focusing your efforts towards that goal while minimizing distractions. I’m not there yet but some days are better than others. The journey continues.
I grew up in an era where the cane was not spared. Home, school, church, the roadside, name it! So long as an adult had caught me straying from the straight and narrow (which I often did) they had the responsibility to get me back on the path to redemption. That was one of the ways we built discipline back in the day, primarily on the foundations of fear of punishment. Fast forward to adulthood and freedom. Of course, I let loose for a while but soon reality checked in and I had to find ways to course correct on my own. ‘I don’t have enough discipline’ is another opening line in many a bullshit story. This one can be combated by articulating your goal and why you want to achieve it, then setting systems in place to build the habits that will lead you to achievement, including an accountability system that keeps you in check.
Another juicy starter for Abunuasi stories is ‘It’s not the right time’ yet for x-y-z to happen. This one can even be crafted in a manner that brings out the spiritual angle and makes it look like it has been delivered by the gods. For a fact, none of us knows anything about the next second in our futures. All we have is now, and that now may be all there ever will be. “Do not put off till tomorrow the good you can do today. You may not have a tomorrow.” ~ St. John Bosco. The actual thing you need to do may not be possible at that time but there must be things you can do to prepare in the meantime.
The fairy tales of our lives have many starters; I have only highlighted three but many more exist. I’m sure you can come up with a few of your own. The thing is, they all contribute to mediocrity in our lives and they need to go. We all need to develop hypervigilance against such stories when their construction begins somewhere at the back of our minds. Take responsibility for your failures and course correct when things don’t go as you had hoped or planned. Playing the victim is cheap and nowadays there’s not much sympathy for victims out there because people are too busy living their own lives. Giving excuses only makes it more difficult to live with yourself as you go along – because deep down, no matter how often we tell those stories, we all know our truth, and it’s not what we are trying to make others believe.
“No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.” ~ David Goggins
“Don’t let your body or mind do exactly what it wants to do. Take control.” ~ David Goggins
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