life on planet earth on Excuses

Shortly after I got my first driver’s license, I also got my first ticket. I was driving 15 miles over the posted 25 miles per hour speed limit and a motorcycle cop caught me red handed. I was upset a...

I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.

As was the normal routine on a Sunday morning, a wife got ready for church. She got up, had breakfast, showered, got dressed, put on makeup and was ready to go. It was just as she was ready to leave t...

I’ve known a lot of people who have lived painful, tragic lives. When I was young, I assumed these people were abnormal. Their suffering was the exception that proved the rule that a well-lived life i...

My Aversion to Self-Help Books & Their Gurus but Why I Recommend This One! I am not one for “self-help” books. I know that I probably could use some more personal coaching advice, but… my habit ...

One of my favorite things to do is to sit on the aft deck of a boat going across the ocean and just watch the wake. It is such a beautiful, ever-changing creation as the ship continues on its path. Yo...

Just the other day, I was out on a bike ride for some exercise. Because I work for a high-end cycling company, I had the opportunity to test ride one the bikes we make – a bike that comes with a price...

To me one of the most terrifying scenes in all of literature is in Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman . Willy Loman is a traveling salesman who feels that he is largely a failure. His self-pity...

Brett Favre was a driven man. He explained to USA Today that his father’s message that he was never good enough drove him to become one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history…His dad had also been hi...

God has a long track record of calling people the world thinks are lightweights, cowards, or no good and making them great in his service. Who else but God called Gideon to lead the fight against the ...

We know mistakes were made.

Evading self-acknowledgment of our faults enables us to avoid painful moral emotions: guilt and remorse for harming others; shame for betraying your own ideals; self-contempt for not meeting even our ...

The self-righteous never apologize.

A good apology has three parts: 1. I’m sorry 2. It’s my fault 3. What can I do to make it right? But most people forget the third part

I was crossing the street in a small town one day, walking towards the entrance to a restaurant. A lone man was standing in front of the restaurant, between me and the door but at least five feet away...

Don’t be sorry for yourself because you are going to so remote a parish. Be sorry for the [Alaskan] Indians. You know nothing and they must teach you.

Mistakes were quite possibly made by the administrations in which I served.

Human beings, being what they are, somehow feel entitled to question the reasons for everything that happens to them. In many instances life itself becomes a continual criticism and dissection of one’...

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive ner...

...You are excused from doing the work of constructing the fantasy. The ads do it for you. The ads, therefore, don’t flatter your adult agency, or even ignore it—they supplant it.

Gossip often veils itself in acceptable conventions such as “Have you heard…” or “Did you know…?” or “They tell me…” or “Keep this to yourself, but…” or “I do not believe it is true, but I heard that…...

I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn’t explain away afterwards.

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

Lord Jesus, I have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief, and of neglect to seek you in my daily life. My sins and shortcomings present me with a list of accusations, but ...

It is characteristic of those who are evil to judge others as evil. Unable to acknowledge their own imperfections, they must explain away their flaws by blaming others.

In The Essential Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, the cartoon character Calvin says to his tiger friend, Hobbes, “I feel bad that I called Susie names and hurt her feelings. I’m sorry I did it.” ...

There is something to be said for every error; but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous.

To err is human; to admit it, superhuman.

People who blame things rarely change things. Blame is an unassailable change-avoidance strategy.

What can we say, O Lord, to justify ourselves? You shower us with grace upon grace. Your mercies are new every morning. And we find it hard to forgive others. Sometimes we are petty and hold grudges f...