The need to justify ourselves. Is it really needed?
By now, you know that my writing is usually inspired by the experiences I have, the situations I face, and the circumstances I find myself in. And because of a not so recent incident now, I’ve been thinking about this inherent need we have to justify ourselves and defend ourselves. When I became conscious of this, I started noticing the situations, the moments when an intense desire would arise to justify my actions, my behavior or to defend myself. I realized that there is no one particular situation when such a desire would arise, but a variety of situations and circumstances would excite this tendency.
Sometimes, we tend to justify our day to day actions, like the reason why we choose to board a specific train to work and not others, the reason why we don’t take in dairy, the reason why we won’t enroll our children in some particular type of extra curricular activity or the reason why we would do that. Observing my own behavior and tendencies and also those of my family, friends and acquaintances, I noticed that we usually don’t only share a fact or an occurrence alone, but accompany them with the justification for those actions and our choices.
Justification becomes even more prominent with some big decisions and choices. Such as the reason why we choose to buy a particular style of house and the reason why we choose a particular city to live in, the reason why we would want to go back to our home country or the reason why we have a certain rule in our family.
A logical question that arises is why do we do that? Why do we have this need to justify or defend ourselves? And what do we accomplish by doing that? Does that help at all? And how does that help?
Sometimes, we simply want to give extra information to our family and friends related to a specific topic. Sometimes we are looking for external validation for our choices. Another reason could be that by justifying and defending our actions, we believe that we are giving enough information to others about ourselves. We believe we can control their perceptions about us and justifying our actions will help them to like us. And the most common reason to defend ourselves or defend our loved ones is to try to prove our own or their righteousness.
But do we really need to justify and defend ourselves every time?
The more I noticed this pattern, the more I became aware that we really don’t need to do this all the time.
Some cases and some situations might demand justification and more explanation, but in most instances, it is nothing but a sheer waste of time, energy and mind space.
The invitation
Catch yourself the next time you feel an urge or a strong need to justify or defend yourself. And quickly check in, why do I need to do this? Is it worth my time and energy to go this route? Is it helping me or the other person? Is the opinion of other person really that critical for me that I want to invest time and energy in justifying or defending? If the answer is yes, then do go ahead. But if you find yourself answering no, then stop your mind in its tracks. Drop that need and move on to a more useful activity.
Have a miraculous day!!
In gratitude,
Namrita