SOMETHING STUPID
It’s okay that you did something stupid. Really. Everyone has.
Ummm, I guess since I’ve done so many stupid things in my life, that was rather arrogant of me to assume that everyone has done something stupid. For all those of you who have never done anything stupid in your lives, PLEASE STOP READING NOW.
Oh, good, we didn’t lose anybody!
Like I said, everyone has done something stupid in their lives. Most of us have done more than one — lots more!
Why do we do it? Hmmm, well there are lots of hypotheses, reasons, and meticulously crafted justifications to explain each and every one. But, I think, the cause behind all of them is selfishness. We just want something for ourselves so much, that we intentionally disregard the consequences to appease that single burning desire.
Do any of these sound familiar?
• We’re so excited about fondling the new electronic gizmo we just bought that we can’t even wait the 45 seconds it would take to go get some scissors. Instead we use our dull pocket knife to cut through that hard plastic packaging sealed around it. We poke our knife through the plastic. Start to slice through it. The blade slips out of the groove. Then the next thing we’re doing is racing through red lights with a rag tightly tied around our hand, trying to staunch the blood long enough to get a couple stitches at the emergency room.
• We’re listening to a story being told by a friend at a dinner party and we’re chomping at the bit to interject some witty line that just popped into our head. The need to impress others with our cleverness is so great that we don’t even consider how biting our words really are. We blurt them out and the caustic splash of our facetious remark literally melts the smile off our friend’s face, as a hush falls over the rest of the group.
• We’re so committed to “fitting in” with our peers that we go out and party to the point that we can’t even stand up any more. We get high night after night until we become addicted. Then we spend the next several years in recovery; desperately trying to overcome our addiction to whatever poisons we’d chosen to bombard our bodies with.
We’re . . .<INSERT YOUR STORY HERE>
I’ll bet you’re glad to get that off your chest. It’s liberating to admit that we’re human, isn’t it? Being human — now that the real reason why we do stupid things. Yes, the cause of it may be selfishness, some desire to get what we want without really putting in the effort it truly requires. But the real reason is our humanness. We just sometimes do things that make no sense. Usually we don’t, but sometimes we do.
Since we all do it, then we can all forgive each other for doing stupid things. If we can forgive each other, and truly mean it, then we can also forgive ourselves. Forgiving ourselves is paramount if we wish to get back on track to enjoying our lives.
So, it’s okay that you did something stupid. I forgive you. Now you just have to forgive yourself.
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