A reason is not an excuse.

One of my old profs told me about a time when he'd turned in a paper late and had explained to his prof why it was late. My prof's prof said, "Mr. Gordon, that is a reason, not an excuse."

We all have reasons for not doing what we're supposed to do -- or not do -- or for being late to turn in some assignment or make an appointment or whatever. But do our reasons constitute excuses?

A reason is why you did or didn't do something. An excuse is what gets you out of consequences.

It's important to know the difference, whether you're in school or working at a job or even in a relationship.

Your reason for doing or not doing something, assuming you're being honest about it, is just that: why you did or didn't do what you were expected/supposed to do.

It's not necessarily an excuse.

Consider the word: it's a noun and also a verb. As a noun, an excuse is (according to Webster's Ninth) "something offered as justification or as grounds for being excused" -- which takes us back to the verb form: "to make apology for; to try to remove blame from."

In other words, when you give a reason for your behavior/misbehavior, you are often hoping that it will qualify as an excuse: that it will get you off the hook. Here's why I did/didn't do what you wanted me to do, you say, crossing your fingers that someone above you will see it as justification for your exoneration. You may even offer an apology, if you think it will help.

Scenario #1: Let's suppose you say, "I was late for work because my alarm clock didn't go off." That's the reason, in your opinion, that you were late. And it may be legitimate. But is it an excuse? Probably not. You could/should have had a back-up clock. Or you should have put new batteries in the one you have. Or learn how to set an alarm.

Scenario # 2: "I was late for work because I had a flat tire on the Interstate, and no one would stop to help me." Again, this is a reason, but it's only an excuse if you can provide some kind of documentation: a call to AAA or to a towtruck company or, at the very least, grease on your hands to show you changed the tire yourself -- and also the flat tire in the trunk of your car.

Scenario #3: "I forgot your birthday because . . . " No reason accepted; no excuse possible.

Scenario #4: "I shot him/her because he/she was abusing me." This one is tricky and requires extensive documentation. How/when did he/she abuse you? Gory/embarrassing details are absolutely necessary, as this involves the legal process. You had a reason, but did that reason rise to the level of excusing you for shooting him/her? Maybe. Some people deserve to be shot. Good luck.

Scenario #5: "I'm so sorry that I didn't get to your party, but my husband told me that night that he'd been having an extra-marital affair, and I was just in no mood to have a good time."
Reason registered; excuse okayed. (Call her in the morning.)

Sometimes we think that our reasons for doing/not doing what we should/should not do constitute excuses for our behavior, but it's not always the case. It's in your best interest to learn to know the difference, as it could well make your life easier or harder, as the case may be.

Sorry I couldn't include more thoughtful advice on this subject, but I couldn't think of any, which is my reason for not doing so. Does that excuse me?

Procrastination has itsbenefits.

So your mother has written you, saying how you are the only kid not coming home for Christmas (or Thanksgiving or someone's birthday or anniversary, whatever), and can you let her know soon if you're going to make it?

Or your boss has said that he/she needs a report that you don't want to submit, for whatever reason, by a certain date.

Or your husband/wife/lover says that it's time to talk, but you don't want to talk.

Or you have until such-and-such date to apply for a job you really don't want.

Or . . .

You get the idea. There are all sorts of deadlines in our lives that we just don't want to meet.
We know we'll have to deal with them, eventually, but we need some breathing space before they're due.

So what do we do in the meantime, with the deadline looming?

Easy: We do all that OTHER stuff we'd been meaning to do!

Remember that closet you meant to clean out? Those relatives and old friends you meant to write? That yard you've been meaning to tend? That exercise plan you've been thinking about starting? That club or political party you always meant to volunteer to?

A deadline for something you don't want to do and are putting off can be a trigger to get done lots of other things you've been putting off but that aren't as serious/ominous. Can't face the boss? Buy a treadmill and start walking! Don't want to have that big conversation with a spouse? Call your long-lost sister or friend and catch up. Tax guy on your case? Donate some stuff and write it off. You know you've been meaning to do it for a long time, right? Now's the time! And when did you last organize the garage?

There are deadlines we impose on ourselves: a sick kid needs to be taken to the doctor or even an emergency room. But most deadlines are imposed on us from outside our control, and they can usually be postponed but not avoided altogether. A report is due. Yes, you have to do it, but maybe not quite yet. A lover says, "If you love me, why won't you marry me -- now?"

Sometimes we just need time to think, and that's where all these other tasks come in handy. Gee, I'd love to marry you, but right now I have to talk to someone about these curtains. I'd love to have you move in, but my cabinets are a mess. Check back with me later, okay?

Eventually we have to deal with whatever caused us to postpone a decision, but there is always time until that decision when we can get a lot done that we thought was too hard until we were faced with something even harder. Use your procrastination to your best advantage. Get all that other stuff done while you're putting off what you don't want to do.

Your big decision time is coming, and you'll have to make it, but if you've used your time wisely in the meantime, you'll be more organized and better prepared to face it. You may still screw up whatever it was you had to decide, but at least your closet or your garage will look a lot better.

The death penalty is often deserved, but maybe we have to re-think imposing it.

I am one who believes that certain people, convicted of heinous crimes, deserve to be put to death and thus escorted into either oblivion or an aferlife, where they will be judged by an authority I can't begin to imagine. Raping and killing a child of six? Shooting a mother and all her children just because she didn't want to be married to you anymore? Mowing down any number of your classmates because you were depressed?

Off with their heads, I say! (And I'm a liberal Democrat!) It's the Old Testament judgment: an eye for an eye, etc. Simple and to the point: if you take a life without good reason, then yours must be taken. After that, you take your chances.

That way of thinking, though, is losing favor in the civilized world. Yes, Jesus first espoused it -- forgiving your enemies, turning the other check, blah blah -- but it seems that more and more intelligent people are buying into it. Most of the European countries have abolished the death penalty. In fact, we, the USA, are almost alone in killing our convicted criminals. The other countries who do so are not ones we want to be associated with.

And I am beginning to think that, despite my own gut feelings, I/we should defer to the Europeans in such matters, as they've been through catastrophic wars that make our own Civil War look like a spat between friends (which maybe, despite its own horrors, probably was). I'm seriously beginning to think that if the English and French and Germans, et al , have decided that the government shouldn't have the right to kill convicted criminals, then neither should we.

I come at it reluctantly, especially when I remember Jeffrey Daumer with his human body parts cooking on the stove or the Nazis killing people wholesale or any number of horrific cases of depraved men (almost always men) doing unspeakable things to innocent people in countries all over the glode.

But if all these people, in all these troubled countries, manage to resist the temptation to exact Old Testament retribution, shouldn't we, too?

Just like we, ultimately, have to admit their our parents were right about certain things, we may also have to concede that the older civilizations on this earth are likely right about this most difficult of dilemmas. So let's just grit our teeth and get on with it. Put the worst among us in prison forever, and if they're innocent, they have plenty of time to prove it. Forget them and move on with our lives.

And if our teeth are on edge, well, that's what dentists are for.

Maybe it's time to do away with the death penalty.

There has been much talk lately about capital punishment: a government putting someone to death. In fact, a case concerning this is before the Supreme Court right now. It's about whether the three-drug cocktail currently administered causes the convicted to endure undue pain. It's a legitimate argument in that we, as a government, may kill someone but have to do it in the least painful way possible. We are not judging them on their particular crimes and punishing them in accordance but are trying, as efficiently as possible, to kill them humanely. We have an obligation, as a nation and an elected government, to be sure we're doing this. They used to hang people or shoot them. I'm sure both methods were quick, but I'm not sure about painless. What if they shot you all over your body but didn't put one in your heart? Wouldn't that hurt a lot? Or what if -- as happened many times -- the rope around your neck broke, and you had to get re-hanged? Would this be considered undue pain? Let me be straight: I think there are certain people who should be, painlessly and mercifully, dismissed from this life because they've broken the rules in such a way that we can't trust them ever again to be in our midst. But . . . we make so many mistakes that it's almost a national tragedy. If you're poor, you're going to get crap representation, someone paid very little and probably pissed that he's not making more. I suspect that we, The United States of America, land of the free and all that, kill more than a few innocent people every year. If we're going to keep the death penalty in this country, we have to come back to the current issue: the 3-drug cocktail. One is the knock him out, another is the paralyze him so he doesn't jerk around on the gurney, and the last is to stop his heart. Apparently the problem arises in step #2. The drug to keep him still, it's alleged, also keeps him from saying whether he's in pain. That means, to me anyway, that he's still awake. So why didn't drug #1 knock him out? I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that I've been so drunk that they could have cut off my feet and I probably wouldn't have noticed. Is it really that hard to knock a guy out? I don't think so. Maybe it's time to stop executing people. Maybe the Europeans, and most of the civilized world, are right. But if we're not ready for that in this country, if we have to keep killing people we are convinced have killed other people, let's at least try to see these poor doomed souls into the Great Unknown with a modicum of mercy by finding the least painful method we can. I say put them to sleep forever. It's proven and it's even relaxing. Close your eyes now . . . sleep . . . Why in the world don't they just put the guy/girl in a room and pump in carbon monoxide? Good Lord, we lose whole families this way every year! The poet Anne Sexton left this world just this way, in her garage with the car going, trapping all those noxious fumes in a small space and, basically, putting her to sleep. Forever. Back to the Supreme Court case. Maybe it's time to bring back the guillotine It was invented a couple of centuries ago in France to be a more humane way of dispatching a person than existing methods. And you have to admit that it's fast: your head's off, and you're dead, in a second or less. But what the French probably didn't think about was the horror, the absolute terror, that must have taken over the minds of the condemned persons. Talk about undue stress! I also don't think that our Supreme Court -- whatever its make-up -- would ever again vote for hanging or shooting squads as ways to execute convicted murderers. We're getting squeamish about the whole idea of governments killing people. We're starting, as a nation, to think that maybe the Europeans are right when they just sentence everyone to life in prision. But we don't necessarily like it. We haven't had Europe's troubled past; we've had our own. And we think that, out here in the West where we're making our own rules, certain people viloate the rules we've set down and, in extreme cases, have to be eliminated. Europe has suffered wars that have devastated their populations and have to re-build, minus whole families who vanished in The Holocaust. They have some things to tell us. So . . . although I do think certain people -- like Jeffrey Daumer with human heads cooking in his pots -- do deserve to be escorted, painlessly, to the afterlife, I think it best to concur with more established democracies and go with Europe on this one. Okay, commit them to life in prison. And we will all pay for it. Let's grit our teeth and get on with it. Doing what it right is often difficult, sometimes downright distasteful.