An explanation helps people understand. An excuse helps you avoid changing. Know which one you’re giving.

The same set of facts can do two completely different jobs. One version hands somebody context and still ends with what you are going to do about it. The other ends with why none of it was ever in your hands. The words can be nearly identical, and the difference lives in the last sentence and who it is protecting.

Listen for your own ending this week. If it stops at the reason, keep going and add the part about what changes. Saying the bus was late and that you will catch the earlier one takes the same breath and does something entirely different.