If you need a long speech to explain why it was fine, it probably wasn’t fine.

The length of a justification tends to track how much of it you are struggling with yourself. Something that was genuinely all right can be described in a sentence. When the explanation needs context, history and three qualifications, the extra words are doing the work your conscience has not quite finished.

Notice the next time you hear yourself building a case, especially to somebody who has not accused you of anything. Stop and ask what the one-sentence version would be. If that sentence sounds bad, there is your answer, and the fix is usually smaller than the speech.