WELL, I DO DECLARE!

Declarative statements irritate me.  They are usually bigger than we are.  Bigger than we can fulfill or stay within.  My mom declared years ago, on her first round of Weight Watchers, that she was never going to eat a donut or a piece of candy again.  I giggled inside.  Rightfully so:)  I once tried for 21 days to eat no carbohydrates - no bread, rice, cereal, sugar of any kind, very little fruit, no juice.  Did you read I managed it for a mere 21 days?  I did though feel much better physically.  I have known people who declare victory over a mental block.  Or that they have learned a spiritual lesson.  Mastered it in fact by the sheer tone of their voice as they are telling me about it guised in faux humbleness cloaking pride. The ring of spiritual and human over arrogance dismantling their words and success even as they speak.  Similiar that is to walking out on a lake when the temperatures haven't been below freezing for long enough - thin ice.  Who am I to think I have conquered something forever?  To think that since I might have figured out a large chunk of something in my head, heart, spirit, emotions or body that I am immune from repeating it again?   Maybe it's how we approach what we learned.  Possibly trepidation and some fear and trembling need to accompany our having learned those lessons in life.  Chances are we will "relearn" them again at some point in our lives.  I think that is mainly due to us riding the short bus through life.  What I have learned I hope helps me to understand the next thing I need to understand, to stop doing, to get better at.  But all those things have to be bracketed with humility and a greater understanding of our failings as humans.  I don't want to fail, to do wrong, to miss the mark.  Conversely I don't want to think I can't, that I won't, that I am living balanced every moment of life.  It could be a pet peeve of mine, this whole issue of declarative statements.  They seem like boastful full-of-themselves kind of statements.   That never sits inside me well.  Why not be satisfied that you may have figured out a small piece of a moving puzzle called life.  Why not understand that life moves swiftly and we are frail, limited humans on our best days.  Why not be thankful that you decided not to eat donuts and candy, but that never is a long time and there are many variables ahead.  You being one of the biggest of them:)