If You Wanted To Do It, You'd Have Done It Already

I recently learned that people rarely do what they don’t want to do. Yes, it took 47 years to learn that. I also put two bites of cheesecake into a takeout container yesterday, so I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not a logician or a fast learner. I have, however, had two bites of cheesecake and am now on the turbocharge setting.

I always used to believe people’s intentions because I learn very, very slowly. I know better these days.

My country's electricity supplier thrust us into a decade-long power crisis in 2014. They've given us a decade of excuses. The coal was wet. It rained. The equipment was old. We’ve heard it all.

For a decade.

A few years ago, though, we found out why the power company never applied its promised solutions:

It didn’t want to.

Breakdowns were lucrative. You could steal kickbacks from contractors. You could even charge them 20 times the market rate, so Eskom just kept on rolling out those excuses. If the government hadn't believed its intentions from the start, the country would have escaped its power crisis many years ago.

My father had almost as many excuses for not seeing his kids. He rarely visited, but he loved us. He swore it. When I was seven, he promised my sister and me a beach holiday. We took our suitcases outside at his promised arrival time and waited… and waited… and waited. He never arrived because people rarely do what they don’t want to do.

Intentions can’t erode that fact. They only give you irrational hope and a packed suitcase that’s never going to reach the coast.

I spent my entire childhood waiting for Dad to show up, and I spent my adulthood waiting for men to show up.

My first boyfriend cheated on me seven years into our relationship. Then he begged me to stay. He’d never do it again. He swore, but if he was going to be faithful he would have done it already.

The same thing plays out on a smaller stage. Maybe he spends all his time at work. Maybe she undermines you at every opportunity. Maybe neither of them should have needed positive intentions in the first place. They should have treated you well from the start.

This is how intent works: You decide to do something. Then you do it.

This isn’t how intent works: You do something bad. Then you get caught out and promise to change. You have a fist full of gleaming new intentions that will nullify the shitty consequences of your actions.

Those are not intentions in your fist. They’re the excuses of someone who wants a clean slate.

I know I’m cynical, but I’m also right.

Admittedly, I’m a walking Second Chance™. In my Thirties, I went into a vicious self-destruct spiral that terrified anyone who loved me. I got help and did over a decade of therapy. In time, I became a healthier person, so I can assure you that change was hard work. It required concerted effort every single day for many years. It required money to pay for my care. It also required me to look at the scariest thing of all: Myself.

This isn't easy, so few people are willing to do it. If someone tells me they’ve cheated, they’re out. There are no second chances for infidelity or violence. If someone swears they’ll address their anger issues, I’ll give them a few weeks to build a robust long-term strategy. If they don’t have a single therapy appointment once those weeks are up, though, I’m out of there. If you wanted to tackle your anger, you’d have done it.