when are excuses no longer a valid excuse?
Last month I was having a conversation with my mom about the actions of someone and how it made me feel. Throughout the conversation my mom must have said "I'm not trying to excuse their behavior, BUT..." about 10 times. After the first couple of times I started to get annoyed. Here I was trying to express my feelings to her, and in a way it sort of felt like she was invalidating my feelings with her "non-excuses."
A very nice mindset to have when living life is: You never know what someone else is going through. Before you lash out on someone, it is a nice practice to understand that they may be going through something that caused them to do whatever it was that irritated you. Now with that being said, it raises the question of whether every behavior should be excused. My simple answer: no.
There have been so many instances in my life where I have given people the benefit of the doubt and let certain situations slide off my back. It is very true that you never know what someone is going through and we shouldn't be short tempered all of the time. I know I've occasionally let a bad mood affect me to the point where I accidentally lashed out on someone who didn't deserve it. In instances like this it can be easy to just go about your day without it having a major affect on you. Now, let's say that someone has repeatedly done wrong by you and whenever you bring up the situation to a friend they are constantly making excuses for why this person may be treating you this way. Are you supposed to automatically let the situation roll off your back?
I think there is a very fine line between someone having a reason for treating you a certain way vs them making up an excuse. A reason would be an objective fact or cause for why an event occured. An excuse on the other hand is a "self-serving" justification that someone uses in order to escape blame and responsibility. There may be genuine reasons as to why a person acts the way they do, but it seems like more often than not we come up with our own self-serving justifications.
I think as humans our default is to make sense of all the things that happen to us. Someone cut you off in line? They must be in more of a rush than you. Someone's not responding to your text? They must have a lot on their plate. Someone was spreading rumors about you? They must be dealing with something at home. While all these may be true, we can also open our minds up to the possibility that people may just be fully aware of how they are treating you, yet continue without a care in the world. A lot of the times people are aware of what they are doing and how it makes you feel on the receiving end.
Nobody is perfect and in this life we are bound to make thousands of mistakes in which we should receive the benefit of the doubt. However, I begin to have a problem when someone has repeatedly offended you in some way, and rather than taking accountability they make up excuses. We are so quick to defend our own skin in order to not look like the bad guy that we actually end up being the bad guy. There may be a lot of excuses as to why someone did something to you, but not every excuse is a valid one.
Taking accountability is a HUGE form of maturity, so while yes you should offer people the benefit of the doubt when they slip up, there also comes a point where excuses just aren't as effective as ownership for one's actions.
Avoid predictability, take accountability!
Happiest of happy Thursday everybody. I hope you all have a great rest of your day and a gorgeous weekend. If you have any exams (as I unfortunately did) I wish you the best of luck!
With Love Always,
~ Side Note xoxo !! 💋
Contacts on Highline customer service number I had the opportunity to interact with Telecommunications customer service, and I must say, the experience was quite disappointing. The representatives seemed untrained and struggled to address my concerns effectively. I was placed on hold for an extended period, which only added to my frustration. When I finally spoke to someone, their responses were vague and unhelpful, leaving my issues unresolved. Overall, I expected a higher level of professionalism and efficiency from a company of this stature.