Getting In Whack

No more EXCUSES - I am ACCOUNTABLE - from the Fl!p Your Thinking MOTIVATOR deck

    In the summer we met in the street after dinner. My brother was stuck at the table refusing to eat some delicacy, and Kathy and Billy were already outside when I got there. Kathy suggested that we go down to Murphy’s gas station and get some candy. When I told her that I had already spent my allowance, she said,

    “We don’t need any money,” thereby launching my life of crime. We were 7, 6, and 5 years old and one of her older brothers must have shown her how to shoplift.

    It was an era of neighborhood businesses and trusting shopkeepers. Murphy usually let you go behind the glass case and pull out what you wanted, leaving the money by the register. He was working on a car when we got there and we went about stuffing our pockets with candy bars. At first I took one thing, but Kathy urged me to take more. As we started to leave, Murphy asked if we left our money on the counter. Kathy shouted that we didn’t find anything to buy and Murphy came in wiping his hands on a greasy rag.

    “Where’s your money?” His wide, dirt-smeared face creased as he looked at our bulging pockets. “Empty ‘em!” Without hesitation, little Billy went up and put four bent candy bars near the cash register. Kathy and I followed suit. Murphy, who didn’t know our names, only that we lived in the neighborhood, threatened to call the police if he ever saw us in his station again. We ran all the way home. And then the suffering started.

    We told my brother who for weeks threatened to tell Mom and Dad. And every time Mom said she had to stop for gas, I’d feign a stomachache and go lie down in the backseat so that Murphy wouldn’t recognize me. I also never wore the red blouse from the night of the crime, and I quit wearing my hair in a ponytail. In short, the guilt, fear, and shame I felt over getting caught doing something I knew was wrong plagued me.

    It was an early lesson in alignment. When you do something that doesn’t feel right, or you do something for the wrong reason, you throw not only your emotions out of whack, but your entire well-being is jeopardized. Worry, fear, and anxiety cause stomachaches in children and ulcers and worse in adults. And all of these emotions begin with the thoughts you think.

    Your wiser self knows which path to take. It’s not a matter of rules, or habits, or what others are doing; it’s a matter of alignment. When you feel out of whack you are out of alignment with your true nature. No excuses. You know what to do.