“We start to slacken the minute we find excuses for our self”

My nits to pick are mostly grammatical with this aphorism chosen by Trisonic for use on the packaging for its 12ft 3.5mm Stereo Plug to 3.5mm Stereo Plug Cable, which I used last week to connect my digital piano to a camera’s line in audio plug.

“We start to slacken the minute we find excuses for our self”

The spirit of this aphorism is obvious. Excuses are a crutch, utilized by all of us at one time or another. They do not strengthen nor do they maim but they do diminish the integrity of our actions.

Many points of grammar could be improved in this statement. Obviously the statement should end with “our selves” and not “our self”, I don’t care how wedded one is to the concept of the individual being distinguishable from the collective “We” who are addressed by this statement. “We” comprises not “our self” but “our selves.”

I take issue with the word “find” as it refers to the distinction of an excuse versus a legitimate reason or a handicap which cannot be remedied. We do not find excuses, we make them. We invent them. Excuses are not waiting to be found or discovered. Excuses are lies made out of the crafting of circumstances to foil our own success. Excuses are sometimes fabricated outright.

I would also swap “minute” with “moment”. Why confine a universal truth to a definitive span of time (60 seconds) when the less temporally suggestive “moment” more elegantly identifies a point at which time does not even matter.

There should be a period at the end of the sentence.