If I fail to wake up in the morning and hit the gym, I can justify it by saying I need more sleep or that it is too cold outside or that it is perfectly fine to work out in the evening after work instead. If I fail to write my thousand words for the day, I can justify it by saying I have been averaging 1200 words a day for the past five days and deserve the day off, or by saying that it is important to go out and meet some friends and this can wait.

None of us are stupid. We can justify every single thing that we do. It can be when we cheat on our taxes, it can be when we fail to help someone that we could have, it can be when we judge someone based on where they are from or who they worship.

It's easy to justify our actions and thoughts and behaviours based on how others have treated us in the past. We in turn make it easy for those on the receiving end to justify how they then treat someone else, and so on.

But being able to justify what we do isn't good enough.

This is the slave mentality that Aravind Adiga describes in his book, The White Tiger. When we are justifying what we do, we are allowing ourselves to find loopholes in standards that somebody else sets. We are willing to do whatever we can justify and get away with. We are only looking at some justification to absolve ourselves of any guilt we may feel.

It doesn't matter if we can justify what we do or not.

What matters if it helps.

If it helps make a difference, if it helps add value, if it helps make the world a better place, then that is what matters.