Years ago, when I lived in Southern California, I worked with an extremely responsible project manager I’ll call Rocco. Rocco was reliable to the point of neurosis. Accountable to a fault, he was a first-guy-in-the-office guy whose shirts were always pressed and whose meetings started and ended on time. Everyone liked Rocco, but we also wished he would lighten up a little.

One day, Rocco didn’t make it to a scheduled meeting. The next time we saw him, we asked what happened. Was he okay? Rocco wore an ear-to-ear grin as he explained that, yes, he was fine. “I just flaked,” he said, beaming. “I flaked!”

He had done it. Rocco had adopted a social strategy that everyone else grapsed, even if they never spoke of it: Sometimes you just flake.

Alas, flaking—which is to say, failing to keep a commitment—is rarely celebrated with Rocco’s newfound enthusiasm. The term has long been used in a derogatory rather than liberatory sense: “I can’t believe Rocco flaked on us. He’s so unreliable.”

It is time for everyone to adopt flaking in the way Rocco did. Flaking, understood and used correctly, is an important and healthy social tool. It relieves you of the burden of always requiring a reason or an excuse, whether rational, psychological, clinical, or otherwise. No need to blame “the subway” or “a thing that came up” or “my anxiety.” Just, “I flaked.” Ah, okay, you flaked. Thanks for letting me know.

[Read: How to flake gracefully]

Before I go any further, let me acknowledge that to flake is a precious act. Flake too much and you become, as in the derogatory sense, “a flake.” Unreliable. That’s bad. Nobody likes a flake. Those cases are usually clear because they are patterned: Gavin just never shows up on time or You can’t rely on Sarah to have done the work.

But to flake when the circumstances are right—that is a glorious good. People have long relished in canceling plans or avoiding obligations, whether in the name of self-care, procrastination, conflict avoidance, exhaustion, or social awkwardness. Relaxed social conventions have helped by making etiquette less delicate, and our very online culture has inspired more reasons to wring hands or strategize about avoidance. But flaking, ghosting, and their kin typically get celebrated as an almost divine intervention or guilty pleasure. True flaking must never be indulged this way. To embrace flaking means casting off mysticism, shame, and secrecy.

To keep those devils at bay, one must refuse to investigate a flake’s rationale. Why did Rocco flake? We didn’t ask, because the reason behind a true flake need not be known. Overwork or burnout, family strife or flat tires—these are excuses that underlie and motivate an outcome that might wrongly be deemed flaky. Flaking abstracts from them, allowing space to have failed absent specific reason. To flake is to recognize that the vastness of the universe, and the many forces at work within it, cannot always be unpacked like a suitcase. Over some you have control: your alarm clock, your laundry, the preparation devoted to a task, the physical and mental effort exerted to make good on a promise. But over others, no control is possible. Or, at least, submission to forces greater than human will should be expected. Maybe the subway did fail to come or your anxiety did get the best of you. But not necessarily. Perhaps daylight’s golden end proved paralyzing. Maybe a simple refusal to act overtook you, absent restlessness or rebellion. In any event, you didn’t show up; you didn’t do the work. You flaked.

Who can blame you? Everyone is suffocating under the incessant demand for rationales, explanations, justifications. Online life is surely to blame, even if not exclusively. For every question, suggestion, and idea that comes up, someone can always, and immediately, seek affirmation or disproof. You say you emailed the document, and yet look at my screen—no email arrived. Did you really tell me you were stuck at work? The text-message record says no. You say the subway didn’t come, and yet you posted an Instagram selfie at the cronut shop, hmmm. It’s easy to feel like every thought and action demands deep reason, a whole scaffolding of support, as if every solitary decision has emerged from a master narrative backed by lore sufficient to withstand investigation by attorneys, conspiracists, and redditors.

[Read: The six forces that fuel friendship]

Explanations have their place, and certainly they’re understandable currency for avoiding awkwardness or hurt feelings. But all of us can benefit from taking a breath and remembering that a human’s existence is not a judicial proceeding or a franchise screenplay. It is a mess, a pile of accidents that somehow, if you’re lucky, coheres into a structure more often than not. Flaking, taken selectively, allows you to acknowledge that life is porous. Errors seep through its gaps. The source of those errors might be knowable—you were tired or hungover—but they might be unknowable. A strange brew of accidents, sensations, events, and sensibilities that led you just not to. Resist the temptation to make excuses, at least sometimes. No need for diagnoses to overshare, tragedies to invoke, white lies to cover the truth: You don’t even really know why you didn’t do whatever it was you didn’t do. You just didn’t do it.

That doesn’t make flaking an ace in the hole, however. Some requirements distinguish the good flaking from the bad. For one, the stakes must be relatively low. Failing to complete the big report the day before the presentation is not flake-eligible. Nor is forgetting to pick up the kids at tae kwon do. One can flake only if having done so will injure no one more than it benefits you. What responsibility did Rocco fail to show up for? I don’t remember. Nothing important. The Earth continued turning.

For this reason, flaking can only be assessed retroactively. You can’t text someone, “Hey, just a heads-up, I’ll be flaking tonight.” But likewise, you can’t flake until the consequences release you from serious potential blame. That makes every flake a risk, but a calculated one. Experienced flakers can tell the difference by instinct. Some meetings demand your presence; others do not. Failing to show up at a group dinner is different from standing up a date. With practice, these distinctions will become intuitive.

Furthermore, the good kind of flaking must be done in the first person: “I flaked.” You must acknowledge it, and publicly too. Flaking is always shameful if unconfessed, because it disrespects both those who might have been affected by your flaking and the institution of flakery itself. To truly flake requires owning up to it, ideally proactively. “Sorry about last night. Dunno what happened. I flaked.”

If you are not already an adept flaker, learning this new skill will be difficult. People will likely mistake you for an asshole, especially if you do it wrong (or if you’re not flaking in a flake-aware geography, like Rocco in SoCal). Flaking is not just an act but an ethos. A fading one, too. It is harder to flake today than it once was. Back when I bore witness to Rocco’s first flake, nobody had mobile phones. It was more of a hassle to check up or check in, so nobody had such high expectations. Now you should really call, or text, or reply to a text or call. “Rocco, are you coming?” Silence isn’t flaking; it’s just rude. And yet, the demand for a response has undermined the institution of flakery. It is a dying art.

But one you can yet revive. You can start by flaking yourself, and then explaining matters as a curative to your reason-addled friends, family, or colleagues. Eventually, with practice, an advanced mentality of flaking will unlock. And at expert level, a calm acceptance of its righteousness. A flake has no reason and no rebuke. “I just flaked.” Silent nods. It happens. Nothing anyone could have done.