Every one of us has that legitimate excuse to justify why we fell short. That excuse that we use to celebrate coming third or even last. That excuse we use to console our failures. That excuse that we use to disguise our foolishness. Every one of us has that excuse. But what worth is it to live in an excuse?

I always jokingly tell people that when I was born there was no spoon in my mouth. I always jokingly tell people that while others had silver spoons on birth and worked on to the gold status when born I had no spoon and had to work toward acquiring the wooden spoon first!  The point is that even if I had to start 50 metres behind everyone I would not use it as an excuse to race in last.

When things go tough it is easy for all of us to cite the race card, it is easy to remind those of the paler skin that they have always been 20 steps ahead. But what fails this excuse is the fact that humanity shares the same birth dates and thus has an equal footing.

When things go dark it is easier to raise the tribal excuse, to breathe brimstone and fire over inadequacies seen only when wearing the ethnic blinker. It is easier to excuse our failure to go forward on the other tribe yet being blind to the deterrent in fighting and disorder in our camp.

When relationships go on the wire it is easier to excuse our ranting and shortcomings on the pain inflicted on us yet neglecting to state that the attention deficits that we rendered in the same relationships caused the beginnings of the crack.

We opt to use emotional abuse as an excuse for our failure to measure up; we look for ghosts in cupboards instead of polishing our key result areas and notching accolades to our names. We opt to put a sad face and wear the victim label as an excuse for all the inadequacies that we flinched from addressing in due time.

My conviction is this:

Whatever problem I have I will not use the past, the tribe, the age, the gender, the geography or anything at all to fritter away from the problems facing me.

Whatever difficulty I have I will rather tackle the odds heads- on and walk toward the light and not cower under the cloud of excuses that will be swept away when the sun rises only to leave the mountains still leering and daring.

Whatever the issue is, the fact is that excuses will not parry it away.  Using excuses is like scooping bucketfuls of water into a leaking bucket. It amounts to a lot of labor and no achievement at the end of the task.

Tomorrow the sun will rise bright and clear and do not dare fail to live and fight the odds by hiding behind a mere excuse. Excuse me!!

By Phindela's Muses

Phindela’s Muses is the pen name of Nqobile Ncube. After much prodding i reluctantly waded into transferring my thoughts to the electronic notebook. I write as I see. I write as I feel. I write as I hear. I prod the deepest vivid image I can conjure and if at least one person derives some good from it then I am a happy man.

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