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Rationalization, Mortification, Rectification!
- Aug 10, 2009 at 12:45 PM
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- Comments (38) Total Views (1084) Everyone can see this journal post.
"I really want to..."
"I should..."
"If I had time I'd..."
"I wish I could, but..."
The fine art of rationalization is human nature at both its best and worst. Everyone has things they would like to change or fix and are hard at work listing out the perfectly logical reasons why they aren't doing those things. Everyone is also busy listening to others list out their perfectly logical reasons for not changing or fixing things that bother them as well. Most of these perfectly logical reasons are pure, unadulterated horse pucky. The list-makers know it, and the list-listeners know it.
I'm just as guilty of this behavior as the next guy, particulary if the next guy is a type-A personality with major trouble admitting that she needs some help, let alone accepting that help when it's offered, but I recently had an experience that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that that is a totally crackhead way to behave.
One of my great big Issues is that I suck at housekeeping. I admit it freely, in that certain totally crackhead mock-honest way that so many people rationalize their douchebaggery. I have perfected the self-deprecatory-jovial-humor-as-defense-mechanism deflector shield, subconsciously knowing that my loud, obnoxious smokescreen of bravado will defuse even the most persistent of problem-solvers. However, I have met my Waterloo in this regard, in the form of a CM-Friend-Turned-IRL-Friend. She's read countless paragraphs here about my demilitarized zone of a house and what I'd do if I finally got my act together and shoveled out this joint properly and she's read enough of my work in general to know that I'm a big old control freak with a capital C. So when she and her family came to visit this past weekend, I should have known that she wasn't going to allow things to begin and end with my bullshit rationalizations.
Sam and her husband Jay helped me clean my kitchen. Seeing as it took the three of us eight hours to do the job properly, it's safe to say that it really needed it. It begain very innocently with Jay trying to find the dishwasher detergent and having parts of his brain melt at the sight of the overwhelming state of disarray in which I attempt to live my life. People such as myself who have dug themselves deep, deep pseudo-logic holes are are currently drowning in them tend to be able to keep the death grip on their shovels up to the moment when someone points out in deed that they're up to their bottom lips in the raw sewage of their own design, and no longer. Jay's act of gently dusting off the long-forgotten extra bottle of dishwasher detergent that had been skulking around in the back of the cabinet was the Ultimate Reality Check, and I saw, as if for the first time, what an amazingly hideous state I have allowed the house to get into. I'd really like to be able to say with honesty that this was a true epiphany, but as things turned out, it was only the tip of the EpiphanyBerg.
A friend will tell you you're full of shit. A true friend will actually show you that you're full of shit by demonstrating the way to get rid of it. During the eight-hour Chud-a-Thon, I must have made a thousand offhand comments of the exact same self-deprecatory-jovial-humor-as-defense-mechanism sort in a subconscious attempt to make myself either feel better or explain the smell that came out of the walls when someone touched a soap-filled scrubby sponge to them. Each and every one of those comments was kindly and lovingly shot down by my friends as they continued to show me what desperately needed to be done, and how to do it with relative ease in future. At the end of the day, when Sam and I were clinging to consciousness and covered in filth, she said "I think you've faced a lot of your demons today." At first I thought she was just referring to the actual demons that crawled out from under the refrigerator when we moved it to clean behind it, but upon reflection I realized that what she was talking about went further than just getting this job done. I accepted help this time. Sam saw that I was in trouble, apparently unwilling and for whatever reason unable to hoist myself up by my own bootstraps and solve the problem, and she and Jay reached out with love in their hearts and SOS pads in their hands. Whatever feelings of Assholitude I experienced at the beginning of the process were as self-generated as the thousands of perfectly logical reasons that ensconced the flat bald laziness that is the real reason for the demilitarized zone and were easily dismissed as the bullshit they were in favor of the overwhelming good feelings of doing a good job well done and being willing to accept the loving gestures of another person, or people in this case.
Sometimes, it's just not enough to counter someone's sweaty, desperate rationalizations with words. And take it from me, it's really better to give up the castle in the sky in favor of a clean kitchen right here on Planet Earth.
Comments:
Now that is a true and wonderful friend to have.
Wow Liz, amazing what a few hours of scrubbing will do for the soul. You're lucky to have such wonderful friends ;-)
Now, are you ready to keep it up?
Sam and Jay ROCK! That's is awesome beyond belief that they came and lovingly helped you. Sam is truly one of the best people I have ever met. We're all that much luckier for having her in our lives. Fo' sho'!
Come clean my house, too? Pwease?
I am glad for you.
You know, Sam, if you're reading this, I actually live closer than LIz does. I'm also known for sloppy housekeeping, but I think my laundry room is the one that needs help and I can't find the title to the van we sold two weeks ago.
That's awesome, Liz! Way to go Sam!!
Friends don't let friends have grungy kitchens. ;)
Aug. 11, 2009 at 12:53 AM
Aug. 10, 2009 at 5:53 PM
I am glad for you.
Have you EVER answered a post that was NOT written by your friend? Are you not the one who preaches daily about treating others well,take your own advice,give support outside the box as I had seen someone say to you in another post..
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- clarewillow
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