Change

It's human to shift blame to someone or something else for my failures, and boy, do our parents come in for their share.  Most of us have perfectly fine parents - not perfect, not terrible, flawed people doing their best to raise children without a blueprint.  Compounding their troubles was the fact that I was a handful to deal with when I was growing up.

I was talking to a new guy the other day and trying to explain that the ride is good but it isn't fast.  The slowness with which productive change actually takes place doesn't play well in our impatient society.  We've become used to the idea that much of what we don't like about ourselves and our lives can be quickly overcome with little effort on our part.  The fact of the matter is that a real alteration of our behaviors and attitudes is a slow process.  Change is incremental.  What makes this all even more daunting is that most of the time we get confused as to what is a real expression of intent to change or simply a wish to change.  People mistake thoughts, wishes, and intentions for actual change.  Words in the air, drifting in the breeze, lots of bullshit, much of it sincerely spoken with little awareness of how unlikely any change will be.  I'm struck so often when I'm talking to a new person with that this human being actually believes the crap that he's saying.  It's hard not to tell them to just shut up and quit wasting my time.  The sincerity oozes out of them - it's really quite impressive being in the presence of such self-deception.

Generally speaking I don't take someone's expression of intent at face value but prefer to focus on the only communication that I trust: behavior.

Or as we say in Alcoholics Anonymous: Time takes time.  The good news is that there's a solution - the bad news is that it takes a while.