I realize my true colors are showing as I’m writing these posts. Despite what some may think, I’m not nearly as mature as people may think. If I were being honest, there are so many days when I have a great desire to turn in my resignation as an adult and be a child again. I know some of you may agree and wish that you could abdicate your adult responsibilities and stop paying the mortgage, utilities, car payments, credit cards, etc… While that part is certainly appealing, my wish to be a child again has more to do with wanting the attitude of a child. I would like to be able to extend grace to others the way my daughter does.

She’s five, and I recently discovered that she can lie, and lie well. How’s that for parental bragging! I know that she came into this world a sinful creature by nature, but as any parent, I hoped that she wouldn’t learn the art of deception for some time. I was helping her clean her room and found a stash of Starbursts’ wrappers under her bed. You heard me right. Starburst wrappers. Starburst are a no-no for her because the ways in which they wrap themselves around her teeth and invite cavities. (Why were they even in the house, you ask? Because they were mine, but that’s not really relevant to this story. Focus.) I didn’t see the look of contrition in her eyes, but one that clearly told me she was about to play Houdini and attempt to escape from this with as little damage as possible.

“Mommy, it’s not mine.” And there it is. The lie. (I already know some of you out there are going to side with her on a technicality since the Starbursts originally belonged to me, but her statement was akin to “I didn’t do it.”)
I wasn’t shocked to the core because it was inevitable, and there had been many more moments of deception prior to that, but I admit that I felt disappointed. My husband and I talk to her quite a bit about right and wrong, stopping and thinking before making a decision, and ultimately making good choices. So the outcome should be different because she knows the different-unlike her three-year-old self that didn’t quite grasp the concept of intentionally lying.

At that moment, the error wasn’t her decision to hoard and hide Starbursts. The error was on my part- of holding people to a ridiculous standard of perfection. I thought about how this impacted me at work as well. I find myself regularly disappointed in people at work because they are all adults who know right from wrong and have the ability to stop and think before making decisions; yet many make bad decisions that have detrimental effect on people. I try to rationalize it and make sense of it by assuming they were ignorant and just didn’t know better, but a pattern of bad decisions becomes hard to ignore.

The truth is that I make wrong decisions every day. I’m wrong when I get angry with people for making bad decisions because it’s a human condition to make mistakes. I’m wrong to follow up anger with disappointment because that’s just being judgmental. I’m wrong to have unrealistic expectations of people because they can’t live up to my ideal. I’m wrong to hold a grudge against people because of their mistakes.

I realize that I’m deeply flawed. Today is a start of a new day, and I strive to be more understanding of others and myself. I need to choose to extend more grace to others because that’s exactly what I need in return.

That was a lot of learning from some Starbucks’ wrappers, huh?

One of my guilty pleasures is my love of the Brady Bunch. So what’s your guilty pleasure? Don’t feel the need to lie. I won’t judge you if you don’t judge me.