Amplified excuses is a kind of lying. Whenever I used a false or amplified excuse, I suffered, actually, twice.

We often take to a false or amplified excuse when we feel that our reason for not coming, not being present, not doing what we agreed on, may not sound prominent enough for the other party.

And then we start going like this: “I have a terrible headache”, “I caught a bad virus”, “My child is ill”, “My car broke” – when actually that is not true.

From such things, whenever I stooped, always gave me painful double consequences.

First, I felt having sinned against my integrity. I had lied. My words did not match the reality, did not match what I really meant.

And this started to be especially painful when I was on my way to improvement. I started to actually feel that when I had taken my firm decision to live with integrity, but did not really know how. See, even to be honest, wholesome, we need some experience. Without it, some culprits that cause damage to our wholesomeness can go unnoticed. And amplified or fake excuses are culprits, indeed.

Second, I don’t know how the Providence works, and I don’t know much how our thoughts get materialized. But in my situation, it usually took only a couple of days to one week’s time that I got to suffer in real time the exactly same thing that I had “called on” in my exaggerated message.

If I had called on my child being sick, it fell sick the next day or the day after. If I said, my car won’t start, in a couple of days I faced exactly that issue.

I really don’t know how it works “technically”. I only see that that has been far too unavoidable and far too targeted to call it a pure coincidence. And I don’t meditate much on that, either.

This experience only supports my conviction that in the words we speak, there is a tremendous power. The same might be true with the thoughts that we choose to think.

I don’t use my time to find out this leverage. What I can do about it right now is being very careful with what I speak and what I visualize. Because chances are high that those can get materialized.

The same is true about thoughtless words that we use sometimes to fill up the conversation. If you have the habit of frequent repeating e.g. phrase “forgive me” without real need for that and without actually feeling like that, then you invoke guilt on yourself. Apart of that, the other person may feel embarrassment, too – because they did not want to make you feel like that.

That is like when e.g. a boy gives flowers to a girl, and instead of saying “thank you” and giving him an (optional) kiss, she starts going like “oh, I’m so sorry you spent so much money”, “oh, forgive me that I am who I am”, etc.

Those who give you flowers usually don’t want to make you feel bad. But your phrases, poorly contemplated – I should say, give them feedback that what they did caused a directly opposite result than the intended one. Instead of giving you Joy, they feel like having made you to feel guilty, embarrassed.

Treating your own words with respect is a sign that you respect yourself and the people you are speaking to. By using direct, honest, well-considered words, we also “teach” others how we want to be treated. To treat others like you want to be treated yourself is always a good idea.

In the case when you need to provide an excuse, what if you try using something very general like “I have a private (technical)  issue, so I won’t join”? That should be enough. Never try to give too much details when you don’t want to. Never “fabricate” those details only because you want to sound more credible.

Most often than not, people won’t need your details. But your integrity is a value that you need to protect – with all your – integrity.