APX-IV-0016
“I've been making excuses for someone whose behavior hurts me.”
Excusing behavior that damages you is a slow erasure of your own standard. You are not helping them by tolerating it. You are enabling the pattern while draining yourself. That is not strength, it is avoidance dressed as loyalty.
Your Practice
Write down the specific behavior, how long it has been happening, and what excuse you've been using. Then write what you would tell a friend in the same situation. Apply that same clarity to yourself. Then decide, not based on fear of conflict, but on what you actually believe you deserve.
The Architects
“To work in a field like that, you have to be confident that you are right even when everybody else says you're wrong.”
Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Prize official interview, recorded 6 December 2024 during Nobel Week, Stockholm (NobelPrize.org transcript)