A Week of Wonder Part 6 – Excuses

I know there are some of you reading this series of post about wonder and saying, “But you don’t know my life Mandy, my life has nothing wondrous about it:”

I work two jobs.

I don’t have a job.

I am a stay-at-home-mom.

I can’t have kids, and I want them desperately.

I hate my job.

My spouse is a kill-joy.

My friends have betrayed me.

I’ve lost someone I love.

My kids are disrespectful and lazy.

I’m lazy.

I’m boring.

I’m ugly.

I’m overweight.

I’m sick.

I’m poor.

I come from a broken family.

I’ve been abused.

I’m ______________.

Whatever your excuse may be, my answer would be, “Exactly. So you can’t afford to NOT have wonder in your life, not, that is, if you want to truly live.”

“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and poor indifferent place.”

“When one day one perceives that their occupations are paltry, their professions petrified and no longer linked with living, why not then continue to look like a child upon it all as upon something unfamiliar.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet

“A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile, and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life. He ceases to accuse others as the cause of his condition, and builds himself up in strong and noble thoughts; ceases to kick against circumstances, but begins to use them as aids to his more rapid progress, and as a means of discovering the hidden powers and possibilities within himself.”

“Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself.”

As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

I come up with excuses too:

I’m too young.

I’m too old.

I have four kids.

I can’t relate to others. I’m a loner.

I don’t have the time.

I didn’t go to art school.

I’m too tired.

I’m too stressed.

I don’t know the right people.

I’m too driven.

I don’t have enough money.

I’m too scared.

Excuses look at wonder and say, “I’m sorry, you’re a luxury I just can’t afford.” And then we go on about our sorry life and wish we could change it.

Wonder looks at all of our excuses and says, “Yes, and what can I make of it? Surely I can make something of it.”

Tagged as: Childlike, Inspirational, self-help, wonder