“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Justification or excuse, although they are easy to confuse, both depend on the context. When the justifications have weight, their reasoning tries to justify and persuade; instead, excuses are rhetorical devices, aimed at wanting to exempt oneself from responsibility.
Elusive by definition, the problem with excuses is that you don’t take responsibility. Depending on the context, its meaning resembles or differs from a justification.
“The excuse is a reason or pretext that is invoked to evade an obligation or to excuse an omission. The justification is a valid reason with which the action taken is supported“.
Excuses are very common in every society. Although sometimes the “excuses are justified” when something was not achieved, was not achieved, period. There is no excuse to justify it.
Justification comes in a thousand forms. A justification tells us why reason is worth doing. A justification gives us a “fair” reason why some reason deserves to be understood and digested from another perspective. An excuse only gives us a “pretext” to atone for all guilt.
There is always an excuse for everything, if we want it, good or bad. Let’s say, If we are late because there was traffic, when if we are responsible and want to be punctual “what is justified is to take a little extra time and arrive early”
Differentiating between excuse and justification, although it seems somewhat difficult, in reality, it is not so difficult. Although many excuses should be considered as a justification, a justification should always be accompanied by one reason followed by another.
"People don't look for reasons to do what they want, they look for excuses"
Let’s take this as an example: that if you have an important appointment (be it work or personal) and you were late. On a normal day, there may be two versions, one that can be considered an excuse and the other that can be considered justification.
The excuse: there was traffic.
The context, It is Friday afternoon and generally are the days with the most traffic, days that always take half an hour more time on your journey. You did not prepare in advance to prevent any delay due to traffic. This is an excuse. (Even if the traffic is justified, it can be considered as an excuse. Why? Because arriving on time is always your responsibility, and it could have been achieved by taking a little time in advance).
The Justification: there was more traffic than usual due to an accident.
The context, It is Friday afternoon and generally they are the days of more traffic, days in which you always take half an hour more time on your way to arrive on time. Although you prepared in advance to prevent any delay due to traffic, an accident happened that was out of your reach. This is a Justification. (Even though you were late because you planned only half an hour of traffic on Friday, why? Because arriving on time could have been achieved by taking a little time in advance, but when there is an accident that delays more the usual traffic, it was not within your reach).
“Although many excuses should be considered as a justification, a justification should always be accompanied by one reason followed by another.”
There are many examples that can be considered between what is an excuse and a justification, but the greatest excuse is the one we give ourselves.
For me, it is very interesting that men, perfectly honest, enthusiastic about their work, can completely delude themselves. –
Irving Langmuir
