On Making Excuses

I have made excuses for so long and for so many things that I no longer know when I am telling the truth. I can't believe the degree to which I am so neurotic. It's compulsive. For every situation that I am presented with in life I offer any number of excuses to dodge telling the whole truth. It's not that I necessarily outright tell lies or anything like that, but I remain defensive in my telling of the truth - I just try to make sure that I still look good when we come out on the other side. 

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly causes this compulsion to defend myself at every turn. It's funny how blind I was (and probably still am) to my own defensiveness. One of the girls I dated in college told me that her mother thought I was defensive, to which I responded, "I'm not defensive!" Case and point. Judgment: defensive. At the time, though, I really didn't think that I was defensive. I had prided myself on being open and generous with myself, and I didn't understand how anyone could fail to see that in me. I think to some extent, I do share a level of openness with friends who are close to me and who I believe will accept me.

And I think that this is the main problem that I run into in a lot of my relationships, even (and perhaps, especially) with my parents. I don't doubt that people will love me. I do, however, doubt that they will accept me. This fear is most likely based in the fact that I have a hard time accepting myself. The amount of the day that I tell myself that I should be doing things differently, I should be more successful, I should be thinner, I shouldn't be living at home, or any other self-defeating and self-judgmental thing I can think of is truly appalling. It's draining to be walking around with a sign over my head that is a giant "F." And to make things worse, no one is putting it there but me. I ran into some financial problems. I am twenty-three and desiring to get things right. I am applying to grad school. All in all, I'm doing things pretty well, but for some reason, I can't seem to shake the negative self-talk nor can I stop beating up myself whenever the mood strikes.

With my counselor's help, I have realized that my daddy-scarring affects me in ways that I'm not even aware of. For the most part, I pretty much considered my relationship with my dad to be a done deal - we don't talk, and I'm okay with that. Those things are true, still, though, regardless of the ways that he has and does affect me in every relationship. For the 16 years I was in relationship with my dad, he controlled me through fear of withholding. I was afraid that if I didn't perform well enough or didn't measure up to what he wanted me to be that he would stop loving me. This was the opposite of what he said was true - that I could never do anything that would keep him from loving me - and I don't think it was necessarily a lie, even still. The truth, however, of what I was learning was "Fall in, or get left." When I was 16, he and I had a final falling out where I told him exactly what I thought about the way he ran his house and the way he treated his wife, after which, he threw me out of the house and I have only spoken to him a handful of times since, usually just to wish a happy birthday or something like that.

I guess that this comprises part of the background as to why I do what I do, and I suggest, why a lot of us make excuses, get defensive, etc. I don't mean that it's because we've had dads (or moms, even) who leave or who mind-play us (though, we have all been mind-played by our parents at some time or another), but because from some deep place within us, we are afraid that once the true "me" is exposed, the true "me" is known, it isn't going to measure up and that it's going to get left. Any excuse that I make, I think, comes from a place of trying to advocate for myself wrongly, saying, "No, see, but I am smart enough," "I am diligent enough," "I'm not as lazy as all that because look what else I can do. Just don't leave me." Excuses keep others at an arm's distance, keeping them from getting to know the real person behind the excuse. We are all desperate to be loved and many are afraid of being known fully, because this vulnerability leaves us susceptible to wounds or abandonment. Because of this crippling fear (there I go again with fear), I am still not ever known, not even by myself, because the excuses that I make every moment of my life become one with me, so much so that I can never get beyond making excuses and just be honest.

As with anything, excuses can rule your life. They rule mine. It is my hope, though, that as I continue to grow and learn that I don't always have to defend my life, but rather, I need to live it and let it be a testimony to who am whether people find that person acceptable or not. My identity is in Christ alone and he is my acceptance. If I constantly try to make a name for myself by offering reasons why I did this, and why I did that, I will only become more and more of a liar, and that's the truth about that.

On Storytelling

I remember that when I was a young child, I would always ask my mom if she would tell me a story before I fell asleep. Without fail: "Mommy, will you tell me a story?" She wouldn't always comply, of course, at least not readily. Sometimes she would just mumble a lot of words really quickly as if she were telling a story at hyper speed and then add, "The end." This isn't to say, though, that my mom failed as a storyteller or a tucker-in, because I also remember that she read The Horse and His Boy to me, each time substituting my name for Shasta's as if it were my story that she were reading. I must have been four or five when she did this, and it still gets me. I think that it was this gracious act that instilled in me the idea that I was important enough to have a story written about me. I learned that stories are not just fictitious accounts of things that we wish were, nor are they a playground for some lesson about morality. The thing that makes stories important is that we live them. We are stories.

While in someway, I think I did learn to value my story above all others' (even if at times I find it pointless, hopeless, or altogether uninteresting), I did, also, begin to appreciate the stories of others, even the ones that I couldn't articulate as readily. This, perhaps, is the constant struggle of the storyteller - to consider all stories equally important. While we may find that the words of the story come to us a lot easier in some cases, and perhaps more eloquently as well, we can't dismiss the importance or latent intricacy of those that don't. Because I think that the more storytelling becomes an active part of our lives, the more we will realize that when we tell someone else's story, we are telling our own story as well. So great is the connection of people to one another.

One of my friends told me recently that her priest, when explaining what it means to "Love your neighbor as yourself," said that often the translation is lost, and what actually is written is along the lines of, "Love your neighbor who is yourself." This is the dramatic beauty of storytelling. As we learn to embrace and see the stories of others, we begin to understand ourselves more fully because we become reconciled to parts of ourselves that perhaps we couldn't otherwise. If we look at a murderer and only get that far, we have failed to truly hear his story. If we hear his story, we see that we too are murderers, we just haven't found the motivation yet (luckily). A great disservice is done to ourselves and others when we think of our stories as isolated. Life is not just a random, individual account of absurd events that occur in some sequence. Life is the coming together of all people who have shared existence until and including now, and how we respond to the world that surrounds us and how we try to change it in some way.

I mean it this way; if I were to suddenly break this computer over my knee, besides being a stupid impulse and pretty pointless, it would change the world forever. It wouldn't save or ruin the world, but it would change it nonetheless. There is one less functional computer in the world thanks to my work. That's something different and irreversible. That event has happened and will, for the rest of my life, be etched on the script of history. It has, in someway, changed the human experience forever. 

Not to draw too heavily on Dostoevsky's writings all the time, but I think he is right on when he writes, "All is like an ocean, all flows and is contiguous, and if you touch it in one place it will reverberate at the other end of the world." This is truly a beautiful and keen observation, and must remain in the heart of the storyteller, for the storyteller's calling is one of love. Whether they accept that calling or not, however, is up to them. We may either learn to love through these stories, or reject that calling and fall simply into entertainment or even cynicism. 

Storytelling is a lofty calling. It is a humble vocation, but a powerful thing. It unifies us. It brings people together and ultimately teaches us what it means to be human, hopefully with the end of learning to love our neighbor who is ourself. 

I Made One Choice

I'm applying to Northwestern University.

On Becoming Oneself and the Necessity of Honesty

We all lie. We lie to others. We lie to God. We certainly lie to ourselves. But what's behind this? I have been pondering the importance of being honest with oneself lately and how that relates to the "self" one presents in everyday life. We exist always between the reality of our lives and some fabrication that insists "everything is just fine." At least, I know I do. In The Brothers Karamazov, the elder Zosima reminds papa Karamazov to quit lying to himself, as if this were the source of the man's pain and dissatisfaction with himself and his life. I don't really even know what this means - do not lie to yourself - though I'm sure I have done it just about every day of my life. I hate the confidence with which I can say that. I am a liar, plain and simple. How, then, does one fix this? Am I, are we, just destined to live forever in this dishonest and disconnected manner? What keeps us in this paralyzing cycle of continually lying to ourselves and those around us? 

Perhaps we are afraid that we will not be loved. This itself is a dilemma because if we are hiding our true selves in order to maintain some image of a healthy, functional, non-real person, we still fail to be loved. We hide behind the mask of this non-self and become so uncomfortable with the thought of the face behind the mask encountering the world, that we let few get a glimpse of the real us. More often than not, unsurprisingly, the face behind the mask isn't all too shocking. It's broken, yes, but indisputably lovable. Through habit, however, we remain behind the mask, and it always gets more difficult to let our guard fall from our faces. It really is sad.

If, however, we could begin this process of being honest to ourselves, we might begin to see that there is hope for us as individuals and as a world. I know that I can often get into a groove of thinking about how messy I am and how no one would want to associate with me and blah blah blah, out come all the lies that I have told myself for twenty-three years. Enough is enough. Yes, I am messy. No, my mess is not scary. It is something to come to vis a vis, and not run away from thinking that the real me has nothing to offer. And this is what the heart of existence is - to integrate who we are called to be with who we truly are, not with who we think is the winning face of ourselves, our false selves. This fear of not being loved, living in shame of the things we have done and the person we've become, is crippling. It is bound to lead to a long, lonely, loveless life. How can we have company or love if those around us are constantly interacting with someone, some face, that doesn't really exist?

All we want is for people to be honest with us about who they are, and that is really all others want from us. People aren't nearly as interested in our lies as we think they are. I know I'm not, so I guess I can only assume that others aren't. But if they truly aren't (as I suspect), then why continue this charade? I ask myself this question as much as I ask anybody else. Why do we keep up this masquerade? My true desire is to be seen for who I really am. What a freeing life that would be.

Christians, especially, should be on this never-ending quest to become their true selves. Of course, we've got an upper hand on the whole ordeal. The only key to healing is a relationship of love with God. It is only his love that can work this out in us. We must, however, be receptive to that love. We must be willing for this integrating, painful work to be done. I say painful because when we realize and see through the lies that we have told ourselves for years and years, it is not going to be a pretty picture. There is some serious work to be done in tandem with the Lord, but it is all necessary work. And to kick it all off, we need to get real. We need to stop lying to ourselves and know that we are loved. Christ, who knows our deepest darkest secrets, who knows our true identity, who knows us for who we really are, loves us and by that we are made lovable. Accepting that truth, believing it is what prepares us for the hard work of letting false faces fade and enables us to live in truth.

On My Life

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what the future holds for me. I guess we all go through times of thinking more or less concentratedly about that hazy place in time. Any way, my time to focus on where I'm headed is now. Don't get me wrong, it's great, I think. Tiring, but nevertheless good. I moved to Wheaton in 2003 to go to college, majored in English Literature, minored in Theater and flirted with Psychology. In my time there, I worked part time at a Red Robin when I wasn't involved somehow in a play at Arena Theater. After graduating in May 2007, I started working full-time at Red Robin, even becoming a bartender before I quit in March 2008 to begin working at a small, privately owned restaurant called Muldoon's. I loved it there, really I did. Then, two weeks ago I moved home. Now here I am, working yet another waiting job, only this time it's at a Mexican restaurant. 

Now that I'm living with my parents again, there is a lot of pressure to figure out "what I want to do with my life" and hopefully do it. My step-father asked me not ten minutes ago, "Have you been thinking about your future" I appreciate the concern from my parents, but in some way, it needs to be clear that dealing with the future, my future, is something that I need to undertake tenderly.

I understand that they see a floundering, overweight twenty-three year old who couldn't keep his finances straight and subsequently ran into a little debt, and to some degree, that's what I see too. On the other hand, I do see it with a little more grace for myself than that. I see a guy who has been out of college for 19 months and has been struggling to make it on his own and needed a little help. That's the surface problem, I think, and if that were the only problem, that I couldn't make or manage money, there is perhaps easier salvation for me.

There is a deeper problem, however, behind this move back home. I have realized - even just in the last couple weeks of being here - that, by and large, I operate (or don't operate) based on fear. Most of the inertia I feel in any given day, in any given situation results from some sort of fear. I don't get it. All I know is that I'm young, and instead of taking some serious risks in determining what I want to do with myself, I have been sitting in comfort, refusing to grow up, and avoiding any possible failure as though it were a deadly disease. What am I afraid of? That I won't succeed? Maybe. That I will succeed? It's possible. Or is the fear not related to success? I just don't know.

"To those whom much has been given, much will be expected." I was told lately that I had this verse written all over me. Damn. And here I sit. Doing nothing, again. Wasting time reading spoilers for Heroes and compulsively checking facebook. What am I afraid of? What, what, what?

I think it's having things required of me. Commitment. That's it. That's what it has to be. The dreamer part of me thinks, "Oh sure, what a fantastic life I'll live," but then the realist catches up and says, "Well, things aren't really going to be that easy for you. You're going to have to put some work into finding a career; keeping a marriage together; raising children - especially now that we're in a recession." It's this fear of commitment, damn it, that keeps me from truly enjoying to its fullness the life I have been given. My inability to say, "I'm going to stick with this until I know I hate it" is what is forcing me to sit around, letting any potential gifting I have go to waste. It's a pity, really. More than anything else, it's a pity. 

But I'm growing all the time. Figuring it out each day. Praying for courage and strength. I know that there is something fulfilling just around the corner, if only I were brave enough to look and see, and seeing, do. 

Here we go. Here's to fear being dispelled, once and for all.

In the name of the Lord.