Who’s To Blame

The most interesting thing I have found, when speaking with people, is their focus on telling me who is to blame. I will be given the ins and outs of how somebody else is the root of all their problems. They have time stamps ready for each particular interaction and therefore yet another way that this person has done them wrong.

Does it make our ego feel big and proud that there is someone else to blame? Sure does, that means we are in the right, right?

But it is one of the biggest lies we tell ourselves on a daily basis. Most importantly it requires someone else to change for the situation to resolve itself. We’ve just handed all our responsibility over to someone else and asked them to do more with it than we have ourselves.

If you are telling someone about the problems you are facing and you have not looked at any action that you need to take, then you are missing the point. These things come up to aggravate us, to force us to face emotions and responsibilities we have so far avoided. So as soon as you see yourself about to blame someone else for the situation you are in, ask what action you are being asked to take instead- Do you need to; be honest about something, create clear boundaries, make an apology, maybe it is time to walk away from this person- which requires you to actually walk away.

We keep ourselves locked in these simple patterns that are repeated again and again to teach us about ourselves. Don’t look to blame, look to take action- then watch it all become a lot simpler.