Coach: “Did you do your homework? Have you been doing the drills?”
Student: [quietly] “No.”
Coach: [aside] “Ahhh … they never like to admit it loudly.”

* * *

We’re naturally subdued when conceding that we haven’t done what we ought. There’s some shame in it.

Perhaps the thing to do is to organize our lives in such a way that we’re more often pleased to share what we’ve done, and less often sheepish to admit what we haven’t.