Denial.

Wikipedia defines denial as "A defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. "

Is denial good ? Well, only sometimes. If you are working like a horse to get good grades, despite the fact that the records of your past examinations were filled with C's and D's, and you tell yourself "I was sick then," or "Mrs Benetto hates me," or "That was the only part I missed out," then it's good. It's something to keep you going, and you will not give up as easy, because you believe you will succeed the next time. But, if you wanna get good grades, and you tell yourself those things above, JUST as excuses for you to delay your revisions, that's bad. OK, I don't actually know if the above examples are classified as denial or making excuses, but I'll go with it.

Denial is the very first stage, in "The Five Stages Of Grief". It is most often associated with Death. An example would be "No ! *name* can't be dead ! I just saw him yesterday !" or something else like that. But let's just skip death, and move on to relationships.

Say Tommy and Tara are both teenagers in love with each other. Things are going smoothly and both of them are really happy. Then after 5 months of going out together, Tommy noticed something different about the way Tara talks to him or the way she looks at him, there seems to be less affection in her voice or in her stare and she seems to care less and less, so Tommy tells himself "She's just having a tough time dealing with her family matter." As time goes on, Tara seems to call less, and sometimes wouldn't answer Tommy's phone, so Tommy tells himself "Her phone must be out of battery," or "Her dad must be near," or even "She's sleeping, she'll call back later." But what if she doesn't ? Then Tommy will tell himself more of these "excuses", to block out the thought that Tara might be breaking up with him soon. Having your heart broken is a very painful process, and not everyone can make it out the same person. A lot of us change, mostly in bad ways. But keep your heads up, because I'm the living proof that we might get through it, changed for the better.

So when the day finally comes, when Tara tells Tommy that she is seeing someone else, there's a few things which can happen. Tommy, can be very depressed, and finds a way to end his life(when matters of the heart like this happens, people are normally very irrational in their thoughts and actions), and this is the worst case scenario. Or maybe, Tommy can be a little less depressed, and at the same time, he goes into denial, telling himself more things like "She's dealing with a lot of stress, she'll come through." As Tommy goes into denial, this buys himself time, perhaps he would talk to his close friends or family members about his problem, before he would consider more drastic actions. Something which is certain, we feel totally different, and our burdens lighter after sharing our problems and thoughts with another soul.

When you're staring at Failure straight in the eye, look away, go into denial, lie to yourself, and keep going. - Rclk