THE BLAME GAME:

This article was written by a woman. No, really! read to the end...

I was driving in peak hour traffic when, without warning, the driver in front of me slammed on his brakes. Unfortunately, something – a flash of white – had just fluttered past my eyes and I’d looked down to see what it was.
BANG!
The other car wasn’t damaged but mine was, and it cost me $700. I told everyone the accident had happened because a card had fallen from the sun visor above my head.
It wasn’t until months later that I had my epiphany: It wasn’t the cards’ fault; I’d been the one who’d looked away while driving. Furthermore, I’d probably been following too closely. I’d been blaming an inanimate object for my carelessness and bad driving. I thought of all the times I’d been late and blamed traffic, rather than saying “I should have left earlier”. I realized I’d been going through life blaming everything and everyone but myself. And I knew I wasn’t alone. I’d never known anyone to arrive late for a meeting without explaining how the delay was someone else’s fault.
And once I began to notice how pervasive blame shifting was, I realised it was woven firmly into the fabric of our society: drunks aren’t just drunks: they suffer from alcoholism. Criminals are not just creeps; they’re casualties of society. Kids who do drugs are victims of dysfunctional families. Losers a re the underdogs who were actually programmed to fail. In politics, it’s always the other guy’s fault.
It seems that these days no-one is to blame for anything at all. It’s always someone else. And what’s more when people feel hard done by – when someone else has done them wrong – they just can’t seem to let go of it, get over it at get on with their lives. Whatever happened to American president Harry Truman’s saying, “the buck stops here”?
This is very much the creed of Dr. Laura Schlesinger. A radio talk show host with an audience of 18 million, Schlesinger is a stickler for morality and ethics. She’s not at all interested in feeling your pain or listening to you describe your low self esteem. She couldn’t care less if you had a lousy time as a kid, that’s no excuse for behaving badly as an adult. As she puts it: ”I don’t give advise. I preach, teach and nag!” her prescription for listeners? Stop snivelling, don’t be so selfish and quit seeing yourself as a victim!
Ron Russel is a teacher in a tough inner city suburb in Toronto, Canada, where gangs with names like Christie Boys and the Latinos often clash. He says: “these kids deal with serious things – an alcoholic family, a father who leaves, parent who always fight, divorce, things like that. And that’s terrible. But many use it as a crutch instead of moving on. Some kids who have the same background don’t mess up; they blossom socially and academically, and don’t see it as an excuse not to do well.”
We should not beat ourselves up for not being able to turn our lives around abruptly, according to psychiatrist Dr. Sheldon Shau. “Insight doesn’t automatically lead to change,” he says,” But it’s a good start in accepting responsibility. Behaviour can change. People can change.”
Like my teenage daughter. Until earlier this year, she blamed her bad behaviour on low self-esteem. Then a curious thing happened. On her own she began doing volunteer work a local rehabilitation hospital. Once a week, she delivers meal trays to stroke victims and amputees, and helps them to open packages and cut their food. She’s kind and cheerful, and the patients like her. The staff tells her she’s “a natural”.
She doesn’t moans about low self-esteem anymore. She seems to have stumbled on a lesson for us all: healthy self-esteem is not a birthright. It’s at least partly earned. And if we lack it maybe it’s time to do something about it. Assume responsibility for earning your own respect. And for goodness sake, stop making excuses.
The other day fell down and grazed my knee. My high heeled shoe had skidded on wet, slippery concrete. When I got home, it took all of my will power to stop myself from saying “my stupid shoe slipped”, and instead simply admit to having worn idiotic footwear.
It’s time we blame shifters resolved to begin more sentences with “I did the stupidest thing just now”!
Maybe we would actually start to learn from our mistakes. Maybe we’d even grow up.

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