Talking Trash

I hate to admit it but sometimes I can be a real idiot! Two days ago I really let myself down and was feeling like a total piece of trash for it. What happened was… I told my wife one of those little white lies, except there is no such thing as a little white lie. A lie is a lie no matter what, even when it isn’t even about something important. I was supposed to go golfing with a customer and my customer didn’t show up so I went golfing anyway. When my wife asked me how it went, I lied by saying, “We had a good time.” Right after I said it, I wanted to crawl under a rock, which is exactly where I belonged!

 

Here’s the funny thing about telling a lie. For most people the act itself brings on more grief (the self-imposed kind) than you would have gotten had you told the truth in the first place. Besides that, my wife is the love of my life and she deserves far better from me. So I went to her yesterday morning and confessed my mistake and asked her to forgive me. Fortunately, she knows I do stupid stuff sometimes, but she also knows how much I truly love her, so she forgave me. But I’m not going to let myself off the hook that easy. I know that being honest is an important part of developing good character, and developing good character is something I am committed to. So I will keep working on it every single day.

 

Speaking of character and working on it, something else happened this weekend. I stopped by a gas station to fill up and I couldn’t get the credit card machine to work right. So I went inside and asked the lady attendant for help. As I walked back to my truck I notice some trash lying on the ground. I passed it up but then my conscience got the better of me, so I turned around, walked back, picked up the trash and threw it in the trash can. It was a small thing and nobody was watching but it felt right to me. Except….somebody was watching. The lady attendant, Maria, came running over to me and said, “Hey, I saw what you did! You picked up that trash and threw it away for me. Thank you for doing that, it says a lot about your character.” I laughed inside as I thought, “Lady, if you only knew how good that comment makes me feel right now!”

Maria makes me smile!

 The true test of a man’s character

is what he does when no one is watching.

                                                                                               ~ John Wooden