Sins, Compounded

This doggone program.


Everything keeps coming back to me working on me, and being honest with myself.  I hate being honest with myself almost as much as I hate being honest with other people.  I'm the easiest person in the world for me to lie to because I believe every word that I'm saying, but I'm suspicious of everyone else, certain that they're trying to pull off something sneaky.  


To thine own self be true, to coin a phrase that has already been thoroughly coined.  Being a Half-Measures guy I like to try to skirt the rules, to find loopholes and exploit technicalities.   I'm different.  I'm special.  I get to behave differently than everyone else.


"Yes, I realize that's wrong," I'll say.  "But here's why it's OK for me to do it."


I'm the guy cheating the blind widow out of her life savings then offering up an explanation that sounds plausible to me.  I imagine that this is why there aren't any guilty people in prison.  With very little effort I can justify almost anything.


To wit: I'm back in The Old City for a week.  When I lived here I joined a national exercise club, so I was able to transfer my membership to The New City when I relocated.  This organization has several options for its members.  One of them restricts access to a single location and a more expensive option allows the member to use any gym, anywhere, any time.  I purchased the cheap membership, preferring to keep my Fear of Financial Insecurity alive and well-fertilized.


The first time I came back I strolled into my old club and was pleasantly surprised when they waved me in.  Technically, this is stealing.  Stealing is one of those words that has no nuance.  You are stealing, or you are not.  I was taking something that I hadn't paid for.  My thinking -- never a good thing for me to rely on -- is that it's their responsibility to catch me if they don't want me to do something.  I rationalize that I'm only using one club at a time, so what's the difference?  If I was using two clubs simultaneously then I could see their point.


I did this several more times, always being admitted, vaguely uneasy, aware that I wasn't behaving well.  I was doing something wrong and justifying it to myself.  The membership options, I don't believe, allow for special Horseface behavior.  I so love special dispensations for my bad behavior.  It's the old red light thing -- I think I should be able to go through red lights if the intersection is clear because I'm such a good driver.


Yesterday, the desk attendant called my attention to the fact that I only had single club access.


"I'm moving mumble mumble new state mumble," I replied, indistinctly.
"You're moving here?" he asked.
"No, mumble moving there mumble," I feinted.
"Oh, OK, " he said.  "Don't worry about it."


Lying is another one of those black and white defects.  I used to believe that if I didn't actually say the lying words then I was telling the truth.  It didn't matter to me if you believed something that wasn't true, even though the end result was the same as if I had told a whopper.  Sins of omission, I believe these are called.


Now I've stolen, and lied to cover it up.  I could see the desk clerk working on the computer as I swam.  I imagined that he was scrolling back through my attendance history.  He knew I was a liar.


This is why I try to behave well today.  So I don't have to imagine such things.