February 14, 2017 
The great thing about telling yourself lies is that you can just pretend to believe yourself.
The lie you tell you today can directly contradict the one from yesterday. What are you going to do, confront you? You’re bound to win a fight against yourself anyway. In order to maintain their status quo, longtime grooms tell themselves “alternative facts” all the time.
Here are 30 lies we tell ourselves on the regular.
2. Maybe I’ll go back to school.
3. I’m going to start saving my money so I can go back to school and get a real job.
4. Actually, I’m going to spend all my money. Life is too short to not spend $50 on horse show food every day. I didn’t want to go back to school anyway.
6. No. I might hate horses.
7. I’m not chronically exhausted, I just need a day off.
8. I’m not chronically exhausted, my day off just messed up my stamina.
9. I don’t care about vacations anyways.
11. Working 28 consecutive days is character-building.
12. I’m not doing long-term damage to my body, this limp will probably go away if I rest.
13. This isn’t alcoholism, it’s…Well, okay, it’s alcoholism but I’ll get it under control soon.
14. It’s the horse show lifestyle that gives me all these unhealthy habits, it’s nothing to do with me as a person.
16. I ate some of my horse’s carrots the other day so yes, actually, I do eat vegetables.
17. Wine is made of grapes, so I also eat fruit.
18. I don’t need lasting meaningful relationships with people because I have horses. Plus, I see my groom friends at shows and we say “hi” to each other, so that’s pretty meaningful.
19. You can’t feel lonely when you have this many acquaintances!
21. But hypothetically let’s just say I did want a normal life, I have years ahead of me to change my mind. All the time in the world. So I probably won’t change my mind but, you know, I could.
22. The people I care about don’t feel neglected. They get that I’m busy. They totally understand my life choices.
23. My horses love me. They would miss me if I left them.
24. I’m an important part of my rider’s competitive career. It would suffer if I left.
26. I am surrounded by the wealthy and privileged, so my chances of landing a rich horse-loving husband are actually really high if I stay in this line of work.
27. I’m not becoming a sour person. I’m just surrounded by idiots.
28. All this hard work is going to pay off some day.
29. Not all horse people are crazy.
Tell the truth. You ARE crazy. But you wouldn’t have it any other way. Or wait, was that another lie?
About the Author
Morgan Withers is a professional groom on the ‘A’ circuit who has been there and done that and then done that and been there some more for good measure.
