Choosing Honour over Excuses

By Kathleen Black

Choosing Honour over Excuses

The Buzz Conference

Kathleen Black

WC: 848

Give it a try. Whispered the Heart.

To change our lives we must learn to keep our hearts open, even when life gives us every excuse to close them. This can be very hard, can't it?

We can choose to be a person of honour, regardless of excuses, or live a life full of excuses, regardless of our equal available chances to act in honour.

I believe when a person is responsible for their actions, they are honourable. That type of honour takes courage and character.

Wouldn't we all rather be honorable than "excuse-able" ?

Excuses are messy and time consuming.

The thing is that honour and excuses can be tricky to navigate sometimes.

Luckily, the world gives us a new chance to practice choosing honour over excuses everyday.

Think about those moments when you want to close your heart, quiet it, numb it, hide it from the world?

Honour asks us to be brave and keep our heart open. It asks us to feel it all. Anger, sadness, joy, grief, expansion, love, hope, despair, and relief.

An honorable aligned heart listens, feels, advocates, and acts.

An excuse enabled heart is blinded in blame, complaints, drama, and feeling sorry for itself.

A closed heart is not responsible, ignoring both the inner world of emotion and the outer world of responsibility. The very fact that the world speaks of its actions, is cause for insult. It's not what you do with Excuses, it's what you're caught doing, and that's someone else's fault too, of course.

Admittedly, some days I do better with keeping my heart open than others. I think we all do. Some days are long. I get tired. Some blows are deep, and I trick myself that a closed heart is a heart in repair. Some days my energy dips, and the closed-hearted seem to suddenly have a valid point about it all.

Maybe, the world is a dark, cold, dishonest place filled with bad people?

Maybe my personal crusade has been in vain all along?

Then I wake up, give my head a shake, and my heart reminds me that we were not put on this earth to breathe life into our problems, quite the opposite.

We are here to live our truth. To empower a better way, one open heart at a time. That for every corrupt leader there are two that aren't. Then three, then 4, then 20, until one day we see the best leader, is one of honour who leads themselves.

I noticed something special about honorable people, and I wanted to share it so we could all be more honour aware together. I thought it might make it easier, as it has for me.

Across thousands observed, I have watched honourable people have bad days just like everyone else, and then, they do something small very differently from others, a small change, that is highly important.

They get back on the personal responsibility train really fast after that bad day. In fact, it's usually more like a bad hour. They have moments of excuses. They won't stay that way though.

They go back to responsibility to self and others. Full responsibility for their behaviour, choices, and words REGARDLESS of what anyone else has done or could do. They own the intention of what they did, the actions, and the outcomes. They move to get resources, and solutions as quickly as possible.

The excuse people though, they never seem to leave their same track. It's always someone else's fault, and they are almost always at the core of it. Their problems grow. Nothing changes. It's not their fault. Someone else should have fixed it.

Excuse-able seems so wise. Never having to be vulnerable or real, playing it safe. Except their train never really arrives anywhere does it?

You stay excuse-able, going nowhere fast, forever, unless you really leave, you know, change destinations.

Step into the world of honour instead

Watch for the people on the honour train.

Sit beside them.

You're going in the same direction.

We get there faster together.

Wave to those who are looping on the excuse train. Wish them well.

But don't try to convince them to come with you.

Just get on your train.

We all have to choose our actions and destinations in this life. With words the excuse-able has an edge.

They have convinced themselves that they are not required to be honorable because they believe the world doesn't honour them, and they will want to convince you too.

As if honour were so easy, like an Uber order, no contact, porch delivery. Set it and forget it, except of course it is nowhere near as easy or straight forward.

With words the excuse-able are more likely to influence you, unfortunately, than you are to influence them.

Choose your train.

Let your actions speak for you.

Excuses don't trump action.

Action is the universal language of the heart.

It's where all the good things are going.

Get on the train.

Focus on those who choose the honour train of their own accord, just like you did.