This week we're talking about the personified patterns that live in my head that maybe you share in common with me. Yesterday, I talked about the prosecutor. Today I will talk about his brother, the defense attorney.
The defense attorney's job is to look for reasonable explanations for my behavior or reasons why I might have done something others have perceived as wrong. If a piece of trash flies out the window of my car, the defense attorney jumps into action and starts explaining that the aerodynamics of the car were designed wrong, and the real culprit in this litterbug case is probably Chrysler, not me. Or if I step on someone's toes, my defense attorney wonders why someone would be so foolish as to place their feet underneath them.
Of course, my defense attorney is a real piece of work because, well, when he's justifying my actions, I'm already guilty. The very word justify means "to make right," and one needn't make anything right that isn't crooked to start with.
So I learn to recognize when my defense attorney is in overdrive because it usually means I've done something I feel is wrong, that I need to take responsibility for something, and make amends as soon as I possibly can. Otherwise the weight of guilt or contempt gets to be too much for me to handle.
