- Yes
- No way!
So I went to the car and got my stuff. Now, I know that I'm a forgetful person, so right after I got my stuff I put the keys in my pocket and swore never to take them out until I got them back to their owner. Of course, that minute the family was ready to take them to my house and I went straight from one car to another. Never gave the keys back.
Enter sinking feeling.
I spent forever being awkward about it and eventually just apologized individually to all of them because their father ended up having to drive up*, get them, and bring them back home for the night. What shocked me, though, personally, was how many excuses I thought of using.
"You said if I LOST them I'd be dead meat! I never lost them! I had them in my pocket the whole time."
"I was just trying so hard not to forget them! You can't blame me for wanting to help."
"Keys? What keys?"
Why is it we blameshift? Blameshifting has been around since Adam and Eve Smith started arguing about who ate what first. Whodunit? Was it the naked guy? Naw, couldn't be him. The naked girl made him eat it. Well, then how about the naked girl? Um...
(Here a lightbulb comes on over Eve's head.)
And thus the phrase was coined, "The Devil made me do it." But why can't we just accept the consequences of what we did? Shouldn't it feel more, I don't know, right to us? Shouldn't it feel like everything's in order? Justice has been served? It has to come down to pride, I guess. I know it does for me. It took me eons to realize it, but that's just how it is. I'm biting my lip as I write this. I do that when I really don't want to say something. Yeah, fine, I'll say it. I just never want to be in the wrong. I never want to be viewed by my peers as a bad person. Thus, the first thing that springs to my bitten lip is invariably an excuse for why it's really not my fault.
Take biting my lip, for instance. Today I was going to go into a round to give an impromptu speech (you draw a random topic and have two minutes to prepare for a five-minute speech on that topic) and was a little nervous, so I bit my lip. Whoops! Blood all over. I bleed profusely, don't ask me why. I guess it has something to do with being filled with blood. Weird things, human beings.
I didn't want to speak for five minutes with red teeth, so I cleaned it up a bit and asked a friend of mine how it looked. Naturally, being the kind, considerate person she was, she wanted to know how I bit my lip. The first thing that popped into my head was some random explanation about accidentally biting down as I did some crazy midair stunt (very likely to happen but completely fabricated in this instance). Why? I didn't want to admit that I was a human being and had flaws, bad habits, et cetera.
So it all stems from pride. What can we do about it? Well, I don't know who you worship, but I can go to God (fyi, that's YHWH, not Allah or anybody else) and ask Him to help me with the issues I try so hard to cover up. First I have to admit that I'm not perfect. That's tough. Then I have to ask Him to remove my pride. Uber tough.
I'm trying to do that this week. Keep an eye on me and let me know how I'm doing, okay? Thank. You're a pal.
-Andrew
*Drive up, drive down, whatever. Does anyone else have this problem? I live at the top of the country, but I always describe myself as driving "up" to a different state. No idea why.
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