Do you know anyone who uses their health as an excuse? You know, that certain someone who is 45 pounds overweight but says that a decade-old back injury restricts them from working out. Meanwhile, they eat their age in Twinkies every day. Or the woman you know who had breast cancer, who, despite successful treatment, has become so depressed that she is unable to care for her family or children and is reduced to staying in bed all day. What about the diabetic who cannot control their diabetes because they say they are “addicted to sugar”? Or the drug addict who keeps getting thrown in jail because he cannot win his battle with addiction—and blames society for his madness?
The truth is that millions of people use their health as an excuse. They have the firm belief that health and wellness are contingent upon some sort of perceived perfection and are helpless to motivate themselves to get the most out of life with the cards they’ve been dealt. It’s like believing a car with hail damage on the roof would not be drivable.
The Growing Problem of Excuses
So many people are emotionally dependent on their disabilities that the Social Security Administration has fallen 1.7 million people behind in reviewing disability claims, with an additional 750,000 people filing for government-paid disability every year. The worst part is that not only is this costing taxpayers trillions of dollars (as we have essentially become a society of disabled people who would rather “draw a check” than take personal accountability for our lives), but it is also preventing millions of people from living the happiest, best life possible.
In today’s world, people are devising excuses for everything. If you can sue McDonald’s for being fat, or sue Burger King for serving their coffee too hot (and you subsequently getting burned), then you can essentially blame every ailment or life problem you have on some sort of disability. And most of the time, people use their health as an obstacle to their well-being. You would run if your feet didn’t hurt. You would do sit-ups if you hadn’t had a C-section. You would quit smoking if you weren’t so stressed out all the time. You would take a workout class if the medication you take for diabetes didn’t make you feel so tired. You would exercise every day if you didn’t have insomnia. The excuses our ailing health provides us are enormous. Add in the laundry list of psychological ailments like depression, OCD, or anxiety disorders that people use to avoid responsibility, and it’s a wonder that anyone accomplishes anything. It seems that nearly half of us are suffering from something that debilitates us from improving our lives.
What do you think? Are these ailments and health problems real, or are they simply excuses we tell ourselves so we don’t feel bad about being lazy or weak-minded? According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly three-fourths of all North Americans are taking a daily prescription for some sort of health problem. And if you talk to Dr. Oz, the television health guru who advocates for natural alternatives, he would say that nearly all of our health problems can be traced back to emotional and personal dysfunction regarding lifestyle habits. In other words, your excuses are making you sick and completely disabling you from achieving wellness. And you, and you alone, hold the power to fix them.
Perhaps what is so sad about the excuses many people carry around daily is that there are countless others who defy incredible odds and still manage to hold their lives together. People like Terry Fox, a one-leg amputee who ran almost 3,400 miles across Canada to raise awareness and money for cancer research. Or Sudarshan Gautam, a two-arm amputee making plans to climb Mount Everest, with the mission to “spread the message that disability is not inability.” What about Vaughn Ripley, a hemophiliac who contracted HIV and Hepatitis C, and who has not only survived but thrived, even decades after his initial dismal medical prognosis? The list of phenomenally inspirational people with perceived ‘disabilities’ who haven’t used them as excuses is a testament to the true strength of the human body, mind, and spirit. While these individuals seemingly defy the odds, too many everyday people sit back on their laurels and fail to do the simple things that could make their lives better and more successful because of minor health complaints. Excuses.
One favorite saying about excuses is:
“Excuses are tools of the incompetent used to build monuments to nothing. Those who specialize in them will never be good at anything else.”
And it is these “monuments of nothing” that create complacency, disappointment, and a lack of success in life. No one who clings to an excuse and believes in it will ever change their situation for the better. Life isn’t about finding a wonder drug or having two arms, or any other perceived condition of happiness and perfection. It’s about having no excuse for not living the life you want and deserve, and showing the integrity to go after it—not despite your situation, but in spite of it.
Opportunities in life are rarely given, but are mostly created. To create opportunity in your life, you must be willing to let go of the ladder of excuses that keep you stranded on the bottom rung of life. Your excuses are nothing more than words or thought bubbles that serve only to keep you stuck. If you aren’t happy where you are, then it’s time to truly examine and reconsider your excuses.
