The Truth About UsSample

We Are Excuse Machines

“Our in-house press secretary automatically justifies everything,” writes the brilliant social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. “If you want to see post-hoc reasoning in action, just watch the press secretary of a president or a prime minister take questions from reporters.”

No matter how ridiculous any given decision by any given administration is, an articulate someone will trot out to defend it. It’s an exhausting and thankless job, but we all sign up for it on our own behalf. We have to be in defend-and-convince-ourselves mode 24/7.

I work in radio, and I’ve mastered this excuse thing. I’ve done it with ratings. Before the ratings even come in, I’m all set: If they show me in first, it’s because I worked really hard. If I’m in last, well, that’s because ratings are dumb. Plus the sample size is too small. And that other station is giving away a car. I can’t compete with that. The other station has thirty-seven people on their zany “morning zoo” show. How can I compete with a thirty-seven-person zany morning zoo team? I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO BE A ZANY ZOO.

What a waste of time. If I clear this protect-my-rightness narrative from my agenda, maybe I’ll have more energy and brain space for other things. Important things. Like writing devotionals with sentence fragments. Like this one.

We really can be free. We don’t have to do this excuse making. We don’t have to employ a full-time, internal PR spokesperson. We don’t have to defend ourselves against the truth about us.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” Jesus says (Matthew 11:28). Perhaps that rest involves being able to stop all this machinery in its tracks. By admitting how we can fool ourselves, by admitting we’re addicted to our own rightness, by rethinking how we approach life, we may just also find this oft-elusive “peace” He spoke of.

No more justifying, no more constant rationalization. This is the beauty of actually saying, “I am not a good person.”

What’s it costing you to defend yourself with excuses?