One thing I hear a lot from my kids is, I can’t help it, it’s who I am. When they have a behaviour or a reaction that I (after the fact) work to discuss with them, the response is often, It’s beyond my control, this is who I am. 

I also hear this verbiage from my mother and other adults. 

I can’t help that I worry, it’s who I am.

I can’t help that I get jealous, it’s who I am. 

I can’t help wanting a perfect grade, it’s who I am. 

I can’t help correcting people, it’s who I am. 

I can’t help but take offence when I feel slighted, it’s who I am.

I can’t help but make a comment, it’s who I am. 

And as someone who has been on a lifelong quest to understand myself better, deeper, I have to ask myself this: What are the areas in my own life where I say the same thing? Where I fall on the ‘I can’t help it’ bandwagon. 

I can’t help but stay quiet, I’m an introvert. 

I can’t help but feel hurt, I have past trauma in this area. 

I can’t help but react when I’m mad, it’s my way of asserting myself. 

I can’t help but yell when my kids are being jerks, my mom was a yeller. 

I know, I do it too. I know I do it too. 

Nonetheless, I don’t accept this within myself. I don’t accept it of my kids when they pull this card out of their sleeve of tricks. I don’t accept it of my mom or any other adult in my life. While I think we all ride the I Can’t Help It train from time to time, I can’t accept those who choose to stay on it, I don’t accept those who don’t see that the train can be stopped, and that we can get off. 

What I say to my kids is that everything is a choice. Reacting is a choice. Playing the victim is a choice. Taking things personally is a choice. Holding a grudge. Giving the silent treatment. Choosing the high road. Keeping the peace for the sake of others. Keeping the peace for the sake of self. Choosing to bite your tongue, or not to bite it. It’s all choice. 

And choice requires honesty. Choice requires accountability. Choice requires taking responsibility. 

Taking responsibility is hard to do. Even my 3 year old avoids it. If she drops something and it breaks, she’ll blame the dog. Immediately. The first words out of her mouth will be, Uh-oh, the dog did that. Why? It’s a response reflex that confounds us every time. We’re an “accidents happen” kind of family. But the one thing I know is that nobody likes to feel that they’re in the wrong, so it’s easier to pass the blame onto something or someone else. 

Including the elusive “just how I was made” self. 

Blame God. Blame the Universe. Blame nature. Blame your genes. It isn’t you, it’s just how you were made.

I had coffee with someone not too long ago who hit the nail on the head by calling this approach out for what it is: Lazy. It’s the lazy person’s approach to moving through life. It’s an excuse. It’s living in denial. It’s shaking hands with mediocrity. It’s choosing not to grow, not to improve, not to mature.

Personal growth requires work. Maturity requires effort. It’s hard. It’s really hard. 

And we can expect of a child that they don’t have the resources to manage the level of effort required. It’s harder to accept this in a grown adult. Even when that adult is ourselves. 

Because the truth is that I think we know when we are taking the lazy road. In the moments of silence. When we are by ourselves in the car, or the few quiet moments before getting out of bed in the morning. In the silence moments we know the truth that we can do better. 

But then other people enter our day, and we get defensive, and our feeling get hurt, or we get overstimulated, and we snap and react and withdraw, and we revert back to the “just how I was made.”

It’s a lie. It’s a lie we tell ourselves. And it is lazy to believe the lie. 

So when my daughter says, “I’m a procrastinator, it’s just who I am,” I ask, “Is it?”

And when my mother says, “I’m overprotective, I can’t help it,” I say, “I don’t believe that.”

And when family members voice opinions about things that really aren’t their business while saying, “I can’t help myself, I have to say something,” I ask, “Can’t you?”

And when I respond passive-aggressively to something that irks me, allowing myself to succumb to the defensiveness, I may at first think to myself, I have a right to my feelings, I’m always treated this way. But now I know that while that may or may not be true, in order to level up, in order to strive for higher than passive, I need to take the not-lazy step. I need to do the work of deciding what the more mature path will be, and I need to walk that path.

Not-lazy is the key to inner freedom. Not-lazy is what is written in neon lights along the path toward integrity. Not-lazy is the stepping stone of growth.

It’s hard. It’s work. It’s not-lazy. And it’s worth the effort for the benefits it reaps, for the benefit of inner truth.

-mtg