This Week’s Arti­cle:
When tempted to blame, pro­pose self-responsible solutions.

Blam­ing is endemic these days.

It is almost as if west­ern cul­ture has spawned sev­eral gen­er­a­tions of ‘help­less vic­tims’ seek­ing redress for crimes, real or imag­ined, com­mit­ted against them. This vic­tim men­tal­ity often rears its head when some­thing goes wrong, and things often do go wrong—due another west­ern concept—that of unlim­ited freedom.

Now, you may be think­ing, “How is this pos­si­ble?” Yet I can almost guar­an­tee that there have been points in your life when you blamed another for what you were

• feel­ing, (“He makes me so angry!”)
• doing, (“I had no choice. She made me hit her.”)
• or even think­ing, (“My father was an evil man, and now I can’t get evil thoughts out of my head.”)

In short, blam­ing behav­iour is any­thing that allows you to side­step respon­si­bil­ity—total responsibility—for what you do, think, say, or feel.

Con­di­tion­ing Starts Early

We are con­di­tioned (how often have you heard a par­ent say to a kid, “When you spill peas, you make me so sad!!!”) to think that oth­ers cause us to behave in cer­tain ways we find objec­tion­able, yet, when pressed, it is impos­si­ble to demon­strate com­pul­sion. To go back to the two morons on the tobog­gan— who ‘made’ them climb the fence and ignore the signs? How does it fol­low that, just because they have the ‘right’ to be stu­pid, actu­ally being stu­pid and get­ting hurt is some­one else’s fault?

Or, more on topic, how does any­one get away with think­ing that oth­ers have some nefar­i­ous power over him or her —that, if it wasn’t for them, he or she would never mess up, but some­how they ‘make me.’
Poor me, poor help­less vic­tim of a big, bad world filled with ‘them.’

Well, phooey.

What We Need Are More Peo­ple to Choose to Grow Up

There is no way to get oth­ers and the world to ‘behave.’ Things hap­pen and, as we have been say­ing, we then inter­pret (give mean­ing to—right / wrong, good / bad, etc.) those things. We put the spin on the details of our life. No one makes us define things a cer­tain way.

Once we see this, we can ask, “What do I want here?”

To blame another is to make myself a vic­tim of her or his behav­iour. To rec­og­nize that oth­ers are not pre­dis­posed behave the way I want them to, or to agree with me ‘just because,’ is the begin­ning of wisdom.

It is the same for every­one. Each per­son sees the world from a uniquely per­sonal per­spec­tive, and here is a hint: oth­ers see the world through their expe­ri­ence, fil­ters, and under­stand­ings, not yours! What oth­ers think, do, and say are what they think do, and say. It is not about you. What is totally about you is how you live your life, and how you respond to the sit­u­a­tions you confront.

The Cult of Self-responsibility

I just had a flash! I often describe myself (in work­shops) as the pres­i­dent of the Cult of Self-responsibility. A woman once demanded that I stop say­ing that, because she’d had a bad expe­ri­ence with a cult. I sug­gested she get over her­self.
Imag­ine a world where I (or you) can only speak words approved of by oth­ers. I vote ‘no!’

So, what is a self-responsible solu­tion (SRS)? A SRS is one where I let oth­ers know what I am think­ing, and what I will do. Period. As such, the pro­noun one uses to con­vey a SRS is ‘I.’ Here is who I am, what I think, and what I will do.

And then, being a per­son of integrity, you do what you say you will do.

To get into blam­ing is the per­fect way to never resolve any­thing, while at the same time being able to pre­tend self-righteousness, through mak­ing oth­ers guilty for your behaviour!

SRS, on the other hand, are not deter­mined by oth­ers, and are not depen­dent upon oth­ers for their imple­men­ta­tion. There is no one other than you that can take respon­si­bil­ity for what you will do. That’s what makes it self responsible.

Think about the num­ber of times you have used ‘the blame game’ to get off the hook for per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity. Think about all of the times you have blamed your par­ents, part­ner, co-workers, for things going wrong in your life. Think about sit­ting there, whin­ing, and blam­ing, and notice that no sit­u­a­tion changes until you do.

Then, adopt self-responsible solu­tions as your way of being. Own up to where you are, who you are and what you will do.

Then, do it. No excuses. Your life will never be the same.

Going through the Uni­ver­sity of Phoenix in order to get your­self an online degree makes it pos­si­ble to get many dif­fer­ent degrees, such as an ele­men­tary edu­ca­tion degree online if that is what you are going for. Var­i­ous online edu­ca­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties are open to every­one with the Uni­ver­sity of Phoenix avail­able to use at your own schedule.