Quit playing the blame game !

Rajesh Bhola

Everyday we find people jumping red light at the crossings. A few days back a driver who was in a great hurry jumped the red light. The vehicle smashed into the other vehicle driven by an aged law abiding doctor. This is not an uncommon sight in our city. We also come across consequent road disputes which take place due to the jumping of red light by somebody who may attribute his action to his boss who is a stickler about office timings.
When we suffer we may look for someone to blame. Instead of fearlessly looking into the seat of trouble, we try to find an escape. It is very easy to lay all our troubles at others’ door. This makes me realize the general mindset which so quickly adopts blame as a defensive posture for emotional and ego protection; this behavior of the delinquent driver has put him in front of, otherwise avoidable, physical danger.
It is not uncommon for people who engage in blaming behavior to also engage in selfish behavior. And as long as they are getting benefit from it, whether monetary, emotional or psychological, they will continue to engage in those actions.

This is where the blame process starts, instead of taking responsibility for his action that had unintended but grave consequences, the driver begins to find reasons for why he should be excused from the repercussions; repercussions that the driver does not believe he deserved. Instead of feeling guilty for wrongly jumping the light, the driver started blaming the doctor for speeding; meaning that if the doctor had not been speeding he could have avoided hitting the driver.

The driver further did not take responsibility for unpleasant result by telling that "If my boss was not so fussy about timings I would not have jumped the red light" Now; it becomes the boss’s fault that the driver got hit by a car.

The main goal of blaming others is to protect one's own emotions and ego; gradually it becomes an attitude, one's philosophy which makes this behavior both self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating. Blame, like greed, gives us temporary respite, but it does not improve our life. Quite the contrary, blame is the fire getting out of control. If we let the wind catch it, such fires can burn down everything that is capable of giving us happiness and peace. Where greedy behavior damages us slowly and insidiously, behavior of blaming others can unleash a terrible fire storm that can do great damage in a short time.

There is absolutely no shame in being able to admit to our self that we make mistakes. Quite the opposite; it shows real strength of the character. Very wise and intelligent people make stupid mistakes; it is part of being human.

Finding someone to blame and then blaming them may give us a substitute sensation for having solved a problem when we have not really understood cause and effect at all. Anger and self-righteousness are exciting feelings, but we must not become so hooked on excitement that we stop being able to see more subtle shades of cause and effect. We need to develop the capacity to be objective enough about ourselves to avoid assuming we could never possibly have created problems ourselves. The fact remains that we all need feedback about ourselves. Otherwise, we cannot move forward.

Seeing objectively where you went wrong is how you improve and develop. We do not progress as human beings just by learning to love and eulogize ourselves unconditionally. We need to develop the capacity to respond to the feedback life gives us about ourselves free of the distorting effects of both the lows of self-esteem or highs of conceit and arrogance.

There is absolutely no shame in being able to admit to our self that we make mistakes. Quite the opposite; it shows real strength of the character. Very wise and intelligent people make stupid mistakes; it is part of being human. The only genuine way not to make mistake is to realize that you made a mistake. Admit to colleagues or your partner or friend that, yes, you too are human and you made a mistake. People will respect you for it; being able to apologize in relationships makes them much more likely to last and thrive.