Be Ruthless With Your Rationalizations

*WARNING: Rant ahead.

For our purposes, rationalizations refers to your reasons for doing things that might sound good to you at the time but upon reflection may not prove to be the best choice. For example, going out for “just one drink” on a Tuesday night at 10:30 and then staying up until 4am because you got caught up watching the whole last season of Lost on DVR, when you have to be at a breakfast meeting at 7:30 and are in charge of bringing the breakfast.

Being ruthless looks like refusing to excuse your tardiness one more time by saying you’ve been running late all your life. The same with other unattractive habits—sarcasm, white lies, forgetfulness. These are not genetic flaws, you were not brought up that way, and you don’t have to do it anymore.

Are you terrible at returning phone calls? Whether it’s because you never have time, you’re just busy, you never answer the phone when you are with another person, or you think that if people really need to talk to you then they’ll keep calling?

When you mentally give yourself a pass every time (“Hey, That’s me. That’s how I roll”), then understand that you are practicing a form of “the lie of exceptionism”.

The lie of exceptionism is when we take our own comfort too far.

It’s when we believe that we are the exception to the rule of how people should behave, and that the rules which apply to others don’t apply to us because for us to change would be to contradict the deepest, truest and most essential part of our inmost being. When we think that to change would mean that we would cease to be our most genuine self and thus would betray everything we have been working so hard to discover and evolve into.

And you wonder why you spend so much time on Facebook.

Maybe you’re one of those who gets accused of making excuses a lot. The simplest way I can clarify the difference between giving an explanation and making excuses is, in a name, Bill Clinton.

When you give an excuse for why you were late, why you said or didn’t say something, or did or didn’t do something, you are stereotyping yourself.

You are inviting others to judge you as the kind of person who would do whatever you did, but on a regular basis, with intention.

You are self-identifying as impatient, or disorganized, or socially unaware.

Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire. So people at work may not be mad at you anymore for accidentally starting that microwave fire by trying to reheat your coffee in your travel mug, but now they think you can’t be trusted to read and understand simple directions. Well done, you.

Instead, try just saying “I’m sorry”, and watch what happens. If you don’t notice a change, say it again. Repeat as many times as necessary.

I know you may not want to do this. We don’t want to do laundry or brush our teeth all the time either, but think of this as just as important to your image and reputation as your personal health and hygiene habits. People who don’t do this don’t have friends. Because they stink.

Start by asking yourself what you’re letting yourself get away with just because you live with four other 24-year olds and no one else is challenging you about. Be honest, for the love. And then make a different choice. Just one, to start with. Let that one build into another, and then another, until you have a new pattern.

*I recognize that this post is a bit of a rant. But Amanda told me to say all this, so blame her if you want. It’s not my fault.