bad habits...

recently a friend was asked to reveal her worst bad habit. she said it was interrupting people. all in all, i don't think that's a terrible bad habit. perhaps that is the bad habit she was willing to reveal to a room full of people. did you ever see that saturday night live skit where a man recently deceased, is at the gates of heaven where all will soon be revealed to him. he asks st. peter what was the worst thing he ever ate accidentally. st. peter says, "you are not ready to know what the worst thing was." the man wants to know what the 85th worst thing was and st. peter tells him it was an earwig in a bowl of bread pudding. maybe interrupting people was the earwig on my friend's bad habit list.

but i digress...

of course, introspective sort that i am, i turned the light of self-examination on myself to ferret out what i believed to be my worst habit. and it didn't take me long to realize what it is...

i tend to think the worst of people. (wow, it smarts when you pull an incriminating band-aid off that fast!)

so, i thought, why not push myself to the brink of humiliation and reveal what i believe to my worst habit to the person who knows me best, my husband. now, he really was screwed in this scenario because it's like asking him five minutes before we head out the door to a special event if the outfit i'm wearing makes my butt look big...especially if said outfit DOES make my butt look big. he thinks to himself, "self, i want to be honest, but i have to be kind, and i have to always say she looks beautiful, because that's my job and i'm a terrible liar..."

you get the picture, right?

my dear husband actually asks me this question before we continue our conversation, "is this a conversation where at the end you're going to be mad at me?"

with his words still hanging in the air between us, i lied and said, "of course not."

no, really, he wasn't in trouble, but apparently i DO think the worst of folks and that is not a good thing, i tell you what!

i know, i know--the first step is admitting you have a problem, but no one wants to think they're not 100% perfect. (i know, that's a problem too!) but perhaps i should have started with my 5th worst habit...hoping everyone i meet, likes me.