"Excuses"

Sunday 9/30/2007 was the 15th Annual AIDS walk downtown Louisville, and my son was part of the River City Drum Corp of Louisville...one of the many performances.

It was such a beautiful day, the weather was Perfect!

As I was sitting under a tree with my 2 daughters, both really fussy and tired from the long day. This little girl ran up to me, she had to be about 6 years old. She came up to me and said, "why did you cut your hair off?". I was taken back by her question, not with anger but I was so shocked that she had the courage to ask me. So I smiled, and when I say that I smiled...I smiled in my heart. I tried to explain to her in little people terms because I didn't want to confuse her in any way. So I preceeded to tell her..."our body's inside has this figher system that fight off colds, the flu and other things that try to make us sick. Well that fighter system is doing what it's supposed to do in me but it fighting my hair by mistake...it doesn't mean too. I'm not sick though, and it doesn't hurt me...I just don't have any hair now." So the little girl runs back over to where she came from, which was a pretty good ways away.

Later, maybe 20 - 25 minutes, I ran into the little girl and her mother. Just striking up conversation because the little girl was looking at me, I said to the mother "you know your daughter asked me why I cut my hair off." The mother looked at me and said, "did you give her a good excuse?", "what excuse did you give her?" I said, "no excuse, just told her that my imm..." and the lady walks away. I mean she wouldn't even let me finish.

(OH MY GOODNESS...EXCUSE!)

I pondered on that for a while, as you can see:0) I wondered if she gave her excuses regularly, then I looked at how excuses have played a role in my life.

I just recently had my son write this saying that I learned back in high school, so that he can minimize the excuses that he gives.
"Excuses are tools of the incompetent used to build monuments to nothing. For those who specialize in them shall never be good at anything else." Unknown
I have to say that I've used excuses so many times, but the ones that actually count are those that have affected my life in such a way that when I look back, things could have been different. I could have finised college back when I was 21 years old, instead of now being a lifetime member (student). You can laugh, because I know that I am not only speaking about myself:0).

Then I wonder, if I'd done everything that I say I should have done, would I be here at this time of my life? Would I be the person I am now, the person that knows who she is? Who knows, I have however lessen the excuses that come out of my mouth. My children for sure get the short end of excuses from me, meaning I don't give them a lot of excuses. I just say "because you can't..."

We have to be able to step out, take chances, face things head on without excuses. I've learned that when you do make an excuse about anything, you'll never know the outcome.