“But madam, it is only because of the poor quality of the wood that this chair has cracked” – so explains the carpenter to a customer who has a complaint to make. Actually, it is the carpenter himself who is to be blamed for he has driven the nail far too deep into the wood. But, he would never admit his mistake.
“The question paper is rather stiff”-complain the students. They do not want to admit that they were not well prepared for their examination.
We are all familiar with complaints like these. Our tendency seems to find fault with others instead of admitting our own mistakes. This appears to be a national characteristic. At times, one is led to wonder whether our ministers do not make mistakes at all when one reads their explanations. Often they blame the officials. The officials, in their turn, if they are allowed to say, would hold the policy enunciated by the ministers responsible for the failures.
The trains do not run on time-why? Because the quality of the coal supplied to railways is bad. This is a typical example of a ‘bad driver’ quarreling with his tool. When did he not refuse to drive unless he was supplied good quality coal? No, he would not like to answer a question like that.
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Often we hear all kinds of excuses, many of them lame, offered, just to evade responsibility. Occasionally we even think of ingenious excuses instead of admitting that we were careless or ignorant.
A false sense of pride or prestige seems to come in our way in many cases. If you cannot do a thing properly, admit that you cannot and let others who can, do it well. We should never be encouraged to offer excuse. Either we do a thing well or we do not do it. There is no point in asking why we did not do a thing well. Justification is no explanation and so let us not tries to justify whatever we do, just to save our own skin.