---
title: Excuse Hydra
tag: opinions
---

<status>Status: 🌱 </status>

Sometimes people will have an excuse for not doing **the thing**.

The natural instinct here is to help them dissolve the excuse, to help them. If that happens and they say "thanks!" and go their way, then good job, you did something good.

But sometimes other thing will happen - they will have another excuse ready. You cut it down too, and there's another one. That's something I call "excuse hydra" -> no matter how many excuses you defeat, there's always a new one.

My hunch here is that folks who do that don't actually want/need help - just attention. By being there and fighting with hydra, you give them that while wasting your energy and time.

While I'm not sure if that's the (only) reason for hydra to appear, what I'm sure that one should not engage with excuse hydra. As soon as you notice it - just stop fighting with it. Change topic, or end conversation. It's a waste of time and energy.

Note: there may be a lot of excuses and it will not be excuse hydra - what I've encourtered the most is excuses being "provided" very quickly, right after you get one down. If you talk with someone for 3 hrs and during that time you get 5 excuses, with some timespan in between, chances are that it's not excuse hydra.
