By Vincent Van Ross

We are in an eternal search for excuses to pull ourselves out of sticky situations. We often excuse ourselves from one situation and walk into another. Life goes on…so do excuses!

Right from childhood, most of us stray into wonderland of excuses. Once there, it is difficult to find our way out. It is like a criminal den. There are many entries to it but no exit.

When a teacher asked a school girl as to why she did not do her homework, the girl promptly replied that she had lost her notebook. As the teacher walked up to her, the girl shoved her school bag under the desk and prayed to god that the teacher should not ask her to open her bag and show it to her!

A more imaginative student excused himself and went to the bathroom just when the workbooks were being checked by the teacher.

When another student was asked as to why he got late for the class, he said the bus did not come that day. Yet, the other students who take the same bus with him everyday were sitting in the class.

A student who wanted to leave the college early told the lecturer that there was an important ceremony at her home. The lecturer who happened to be a family friend, turned up at her place after the class to find that her parents knew nothing of the ceremony. Only, the student was missing!

An employee who got late to the office told his boss that his wife was seriously ill. Only, he knew that his wife had reached her office on time and was busy with her work!

An employee who got late was telling his boss that he was stuck up in a traffic jam even as the FM radio broadcasting a traffic update said his route was absolutely problem free!

An employer who did not raise the salaries of his employees for several years told them that there was no money since the company was running at a loss. When he threw a party, it was the grandest in town!

The trouble with excuses is that we grow with them. Then we grow on them. And, ultimately, they grow on us.

Excuses begin as harmless lies. I wonder if any lie could be harmless though. By and by, they take hold of our lives. Gradually, excuses get a stranglehold on us.

The more the number of excuses we use, the weaker we grow. The fact that we are using excuses to bail ourselves out of sticky situations means that we are unable to stand up to these situations and face them. In the long run, it does more harm than good.

There is at least one similarity between the art of making excuses and the art of story telling. Both need a fertile mind and imagination. Some people who are good at making excuses evolve into good story writers.

Some excuses could be innocent. Some are deliberate. And, some could be motivated. It all depends upon who is making those excuses and why.

I had all the above excuses to write this piece. And, if I didn’t want to write it, I could have found an excuse!