We humans seem to be singularly gifted when it comes to making up excuses for why we don't do things, or don't try, or don't quit, or don't change things... even when it would clearly be the best thing for us.
But it's still a strategy we seem to use for virtually everything from why we don't want to go to a party, to situations where we choose not to take on a new job even though it might suit us quite well, to why we don't leave an abusive relationship. It would be nice to think we outgrow our childhood claims that "Bobby made me do it!" but it seems like we never do.
There's always an excuse.
I'm certainly not claiming that I'm exempt from being part of this pattern, although in more recent years I have grown more willing to just outright state why I don't want to do something and choose not to... rather than cooking up some elaborate excuse.
It's not rocket science!
In the past, I think many of my choices were informed by not wanting to look bad or somehow look "less than" what the world around me expected of me.
But there comes a time when you have to ask yourself who you're really trying to impress, and who it is you're trying to make happy in the world. Not suggesting that there's anything wrong with wanting to please other people, just that there's something wrong with doing so at the expense of your own life.
As a friend of mine characterized it, many years ago: you don't need to "sacrifice yourself on the altar of selflessness."
Of course, we also don't want to be rude, generally speaking.
So we end up going to events and parties we don't care about, at the behest of people we don't really like... and promise ourselves that next time we'll say no. Except we don't.
Much of the time, when I have caught myself starting to fabricate an excuse, the truth has been that my head/heart simply wasn't in it, whatever "it" might have been, at the time.
It's often what you discover, if you have been a "go with the flow" sort of person for most of your life.
The thing most of us struggle with is embracing the simple fact that "NO is a complete sentence." Even though it is typically just an expression of having healthy personal boundaries, we often come from a background where we were led to believe that it was rude to turn down someone asking us to do something.
Similarly, when we fail to do/accomplish something, we typically feel compelled to come up with all sorts of reasons other than the truthful "I just couldn't bring myself to do that because it's so mindnumbingly boring/meaningless." It was how I felt about most of my years in the IT industry.
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2026.04.20 23:58 PST
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