My mother once told me that when I was a child she asked me to pick up something on the floor which I had thrown there. I didn’t want and replied: “I cannot, my arms are too short.”
This became an iconic example for self-excuses. It comes to my mind in cases of my own self-excuses and when coming across others’ expressing their inability to do something. Often it is a self-fooling and trying to hide one’s unwillingness. In such cases, my wife and I use to say, “Yes, the arms are too short.”
Such twisting is not as negligible as it might appear at first sight. It causes inner twists leading to distortions in our perception and to character flaws. And these again, are boulders on the spiritual path.
I recently came across a person having problems with a neighbor for years. The problem was, of course, seen as being with the neighbour, and there was no chance of changing the situation. So she said: “They say it’s all part of the Divine Plan. My view is that the Plan must have flaws.”
We usually project the sources of problems to the outside, to other people or outer situations, neglecting to start with ourselves. So I replied, “Sorry to say so, but it is your view of the Plan where the flaws are.”