On Being Too

A long time ago a counselor or teacher told me that the word "too" is over used.  We say things like "I'm too old" or "It's too late" or "I'm too fat, thin, ugly, pretty, lazy...so on and so on."  That person said to me, "You either are or you aren"t.  When you say to are too anything, you are passing judgement and creating a negative."   Hmmm.  I believe that is correct.  I am too quick to say I'm too fat or too shy or too lazy.  While I might be a bit over ideal weight, I'm not fat.  And I may be reserved in a lot of social situations, I'm not really shy, I'm cautious.  Maybe overly cautious, but not too cautious when I think about it.  And so on down the list.

I was thinking about this because I have been too busy with a family crisis to find the energy to write my blog, work on my memoirs, work on my photo art and so on.  Yes, I've been too distracted to dust the house, weed the yard or even walk the dogs at times.  But this is just a situation I have no control over.  Life has a way of happening and it doesn't pay to get too upset by it.  "This too shall pass."  I had to look up the origin of this expression which I thought was found in the Bible.  It apparently is not.  The original is not known according to Google, that source of all knowledge.  (Can one be too reliant on Google?)   But in any case, it fits here.

So here I am to tell you, it doesn't pay to say you are too anything.  Just by writing this blog this morning after a week off tells me so.  Perhaps I should adopt another phrase to repeat in my head: Just do it!   I hope I don't sound too unrealistic....just unrealistic enough.

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