Ok, But How About Tomorrow

Isn't avoidance a great thing? I mean what a concept. Life gets hard, just avoid it. Family gets out of control, just avoid them. Marriage turns sour, just avoid responsibility. Reggie, the wonder greyhound, lies at my feet, looking up at me from time to time, wanting me to take him out for his walk, and here I sit, in complete avoidance, my behind comfortable embedded in my red leather couch.

W.C. Fields was quoted, loosely by my memory, as once saying, "Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow". When I was a young man, sharing a room at my parents’ house with my brother, I remember him swearing to the wisdom of Mr. Fields. We were just kids and our understanding of the reality of such a statement was unknown to our pre-adolescent brains. When I became a young adult, these words continued to be etched into my mind, and having gained an adult understanding of the meaning, I became quite good at practicing what Mr. Fields preached. (Oh, and if you don't know W.C. Fields, check him out, he was one of the greats of an old and gone time.)

Avoidance can become one of those bad habits of attempting to manage when life and all that goes with it becomes unmanageable. Avoidance can be not doing what we need to do because it's too hard, because we fear failure or rejection, because not doing is just plainly that much easier than traveling the road of doing. Avoidance can be in the form of consumption, feeding our brains and souls with chemicals, food, alcohol, drugs, in an attempt to avoid by forgetting, by numbing the feelings we attempt to avoid. Avoidance can also be leaping from bed to bed, relationship to relationship, friend to friend, never getting close enough to anyone, being "happy" in the cave of loneliness.

So, what are you skilled at avoiding? Where do you run to numb the reality of life? Avoidance is like getting drunk to me, you've got to sober up sometime, and you've got to look into reality sometime as well. Or do you? I suppose not, but what a lonely road that must be, or should I say, what a lonely road that is. Merton wrote about solitude, being alone, and contemplation, all of which in my introverted self I openly invite and embrace. Avoidance might look the same, but where one soothes and grows the soul, the other riddles it with holes.

Today, I encourage you to take a few minutes, be honest, and begin to see the avoidance in your life. In what appears to be a contradiction, move slow, take your time, but keep moving. Give up your fear and let your God begin to heal those wounds you've been running from. Seek help from a pastor, healthy friend or family, from a therapist, to fill the voids of avoidance with the love you desire. See you later, Mr. Fields.

(The writings in this post are random thoughts and observations and are NEVER intended as professional or personal advice. Take what works and leave the rest.)