What's Your Excuse?

This week my sweet husband said two words to me that you might not expect out of him...

You're pathetic.

Now, before you get your knickers in a knot and leave comments about how no man should ever say that to his wife, and no self-respecting woman should ever take that from a man, let me be very clear: he was totally correct. 

In context, we were discussing a fundraiser that we're trying to plan for our adoption. And by "trying" I mean that we've talked about it a lot. And by "planning," I mean avoiding doing anything other than emailing a couple of people. 

There are a lot of positives to being married to someone of the same personality type. You get each other's humor, you understand their weak spots, and you're a solid team against the world. However, it also means that those aforementioned weak spots are your collective kryptonite. 

You'll be happy to know he didn't stop there. He paused before saying...

We both are.

In this instance, he was referring to our combined hatred of talking to people on the phone. Emails? Yes. Texting? A gift of the technology gods to introverts everywhere! But phone calls? Oh, please... anything but that! I've been putting off a phone call (to someone I know!) for months, and then a second phone call for several weeks to someone I don't. There's always an excuse. 

I was so swamped at work today. I meant to call him/her, but then I totally forgot until it was too late. I have it on my "to do" list. It's really tacky to call over the weekend, I'll wait until Monday. It was the next thing on my list and then [insert name] dropped by and ended up staying for 2 hours. {Or when there is time and no good excuse...} Did you see that I organized the pantry?

Here's the deal: in my head, I know that I have built up something I hate doing (talking on the phone) into a Goliath that it does not deserve to be. And truth be told, the calls take about 5 minutes, the information is gathered, and then it's all over. The "stone" of just doing it could absolutely take down the Goliath of dreading it.

How often is this the case? Yesterday, Phil Gerbyshack shared an image on his social media channels that perfectly captured this tendency, with the quote, "Stop saying it won't work. Start asking how you can make it work." As soon as I read it, it clicked.

There are several things in my life at the moment that I am guilty of shoving into the "it won't work" category. I am the queen of excuses when it comes to those things - always ready with a, "yes, well..." answer when the Hubs (or anyone else) asks me if I've followed through on something. If I took Phil's advice, I wonder what all I could accomplish - and what my life might look like in a year - if instead of making excuses, I started asking, "How can I can make it work?"

Now, if you'll excuse me... I have a phone call to take care of.