At what point does a reason stop being a reason and start being an excuse?

For example, I have hormones currently regulated by mother nature and let’s just say that the old broad ain’t so consistent in either timing or intensity.  This is the reason for my periodic and sometimes drastic mood swings – not because I am a loser or a bad person or an untimely bitch.  There is plausible proof of some internal body electrical misfires.

I may or may not have consciously known this over the course of my thirty years dealing with an “electrical” cycle.  However, since having my “junction box” removed last year while retaining my “generators”, the whole issue has been more in the forefront of my daily cognitive functions.  (Please note:  blogger apology for the crude metaphor – I didn’t want to scare off the men who may possibly be reading this with words like menstrual, uterus, or ovaries – ;o].)

Do I still have reason to let these power failures affect me now that I am more self-aware?  Or do I use them as an excuse for my behavior thereby circumventing the implementation of actual adjustments in my life – regular exercise, strict diet, and possible HRT resulting in a more than moderately different person?

Like I said, it’s been thirty years – surely I am supposed to have dealt with it by now, right?  What if it were a different ailment – one not so illusive with more apparent physical signs and reactions like cancer?  Would the deadly ramifications offset the attitude and thereby provide some leniency?  Or MS?  Are those complications severe enough to warrant a hall pass on likability?  Or leprosy? Could the skin lesions alone grant me access to Barbara Walters’ ten most fascinating people regardless of my sporadic inability to be kind?

What if the malady was even more slippery and less socially acceptable to discuss like MPD?  Could I continue to blame the evil Mary Kate for my tantrums and outbursts indefinitely?  What about alcoholism?  Which program step is it that forces me to stop attributing my behavior to the drinking or alcoholic tendencies?  How about a deeply painful and repressed sexual abuse from childhood?  How long could I continue to live my life in reaction to such an abuse before the universe tells me to get over it?

In other words, to morph some extremely tired cliches, when do I stop sitting around calling a spade a spade and pick up the damn shovel to move enough dirt to turn the freaking mountain into an oasis?

Would that depend on the inherent caliber of person I am or am perceived to be in the greater era of history?  Who and what decides that?  Would I let it affect the person I am meant to become?  Or would I become that person because of it?  Which came first – the saint or the miracle?

Would Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu have become Mother Teresa had she also had to battle cancer her whole life?  What if Gandhi were an alcoholic?  Would he have become the humble giant of peaceful leadership we still hold in highest esteem today?  Suppose the Buddha was a leper?  Would the isolation have hastened his reach to Nirvana or prevented it?  How about Jesus?  What if he’d been abused before a section of humanity realized he was their Son of God?  Wouldn’t he have still grown up to be the Messiah for the two billion Christians in the world today?

My hormonal swings are clearly dwarfed by these larger and possibly offensive comparisons I have attempted to develop but they are currently my albatross with which I have to decide how much longer I am to let choke me.

The list is long of people in history, religion and our everyday lives of those who have eclipsed these seemingly minor to literally earth shattering situations to become luminaries, spiritual centers and generally happy individuals.

Am I willing to join them?

Are you?