Old Faithful

I woke up this morning all full of deep thoughts. I think this may be something that happens when you sleep at night. I'm not sure. It doesn't happen to me that often (the sleep thing, not the deep thinking. Okay, the deep thinking too). Since I'm full of wisdom today, I thought I'd share. Goodness knows I share enough of my jackass moments that it's about time for some balance.

I decided, while lying with my face buried in my pillows (a self-defense mechanism that keeps my sinus-infection-fueled snoring from waking me up) that reliability and dependability ought to be celebrated more.

We're pretty good at making dependable folks the butt of wisecracks, as if caring about how you treat other people makes you some sort of social outcast. Heck, in some circles it probably does. Or maybe it's just one of those things where it's a whole bunch easier to poke fun at someone who regularly does something you struggle to do, than it is to struggle harder at doing it yourself.

It's not easy to do what you say you'll do in the time frame you say you'll do it in. It's the less-fun option. Sometimes it means putting aside things that are important to you, that you're feeling all jazzed about, and doing something you'd rather not. People with follow-through don't do it because they're too boring to think of anything better to do, but because they care enough about how they treat others to make it a priority.

Letting people down because of circumstances I can't control (and my life has been all about that in the past couple years) chips away at something about myself I've always liked. So, it's one of the things I work hardest to be better at.

I never realized how much it means to me to be successful at it until a friend thanked me for it. Much like an excitable puppy (which pretty much describes me in general) that bit of appreciation made me work even harder at it--imagine what would have happened had that praise been accompanied by chocolate? Scary thought, you guys.

So, I reckon, if you're lucky enough to have someone reliable in your life, you should tell them so. Or give them chocolate. Either is good. It's positive reinforcement. Think about it, it'll make them even better at it which can only benefit you. Supernanny would be all over this for an idea. Sheldon tried it out with Penny on The Big Bang Theory to great success (and goodness knows there is no greater source of wisdom in this or any other universe than TBBT). Chocolate and big hugs all round!

PS: I wrote this because I wanted to grasp hold of this small moment of wisdom while I had it. It is not directed at anyone else, or looking for praise (mainly because I haven't earned it much in the past few years!). No veiled nudges from me, because mostly, I'm kinda oblivious when other people let me down. I'm more interested in what I do.