My Dog Ate My Homework

Many of you may be familiar with this famous line, known to be said by children who have not done their homework for school from the night before. To a child this seems like a reasonable excuse for not having something done that should be finished. The dog represents a force of nature that can not be controlled, there for validating the destruction of the homework. This seems ok on the outside, and is pretty creative for a child to think up (for the first time). As an adult I look back on it and think, wow what an excuse, not a reason, but an excuse. Don't know the difference between an excuse and a reason? Read on and I'll explain.

Let's pretend for a moment the child is telling the truth. Does the dog destroying their homework really automatically validate them not having it when it is needed? In my opinion, no it does not. I would ask the child: "Where did you leave your homework that the dog got to?". It's not like dogs chewing things they aren't supposed to is a big secret, anyone who even just knows about dogs knows this. Now of course this is a child, and the child can not be expected to predict the behavior of the dog and know to put their homework where the dog cannot reach it. In this circumstance I would contact the parents and ask them if they have explained to their child about putting toys, shoes, and other things away since they have a dog. Only then would I be able to determine if the dog in fact did something that was uncontrollable. Because if you leave your homework beside the dogs food dish and he eats it, no free pass for you and your excuse. Now if the dog first got up onto the child's desk, then chewed through a backpack, then chewed their homework as well, that would be a good reason to not have your homework available when it was supposed to be. Once

Flash forward, it's high school now, and the same kid sleeps in when the power goes out and his alarm clock doesn't work. His parent comes home and says "Why didn't you go to school today?" He replies, "I slept in an hour.". Does that seem like a good reason to miss school? No, it's an excuse. But it could be a reason for being late to school, but not attending entirely turns it into an excuse. There was nothing stopping the kid from going to school and attending whatever portion of school was left when they awoke, but they chose to use the sleeping in as an excuse for bad behavior.

Again, flash forward, same person is an early adult, they are in university/college and they lend money to a friend who says "I'll pay you back in 1 week when I get paid.". A week goes by and the friend never calls, the young adult calls him a few times and no answer, and never a call back from the friend. Since he trusted his friend would pay him, he lets a few more weeks go by. He realizes it's time to pay the cell phone bill and his bank balance isn't right because of the money he was expecting back and he doesn't have enough to pay it. Is he going to call the phone company and explain to them that his friend borrowed money and that he hasn't paid it back, and the bill can't be paid until he does? What do you think they'll say?

Flash forward one last time. It's his first real job in his career of choice, and the boss has assigned him the big project. He works every day at work 9-5 and even skips some lunches to try and get it finished in time. It's the last weekend before the Monday the project is due, Friday 5pm roles around and he simply isn't finished. Looks like it's homework time, he brings the project home, and completes it over the weekend. On Monday morning on his way to work he drops the project into a puddle and it is effectively destroyed or at least not presentable to the big corporate investors his boss wanted to present it to. So now he goes to work and tells his boss what? Does it matter what he says?

The point of all this is people need to own their actions. An excuse is something you give when you don't want to tell the truth. A reason is something out of your control, a simple fact. Don't let 'powers beyond your control' be the excuse you don't succeed. For the better part of your life you are in control of your own fate.