When we succeed in something, we eagerly take credit for it and perhaps we even lead the way to get our accomplishments acknowledged; fair enough. But when we do something in the OOPS category, we have a tendency to immediately look around for anybody to blame or something to be fully responsible, other than ourselves - but do you think that’s fair?
So here you go: “Not me; I pretty much fess up to all the OOPS in my life; I take full responsibility for my actions…” At least that’s what you think you do, but you really don’t. Of course that does not make you a bad person – just confirms that you are “one of us”, really.
I’m sitting here writing, using my trusted software and fast computer with all its impressive technology. More stuff in the word-processing program that I will ever be able use, or more likely, will never be able to figure out how to use; duh…
The screen goes blank, I lost two hours of work; so do I go (in a calm, deep and sensuous voice): “Oh, I wonder what has happened? Did I do something wrong? Did I press a key that should not have been pressed at this time? Did the cat run across the keyboard without my permission? Was that an earthquake?” That would be a good initial reaction, by looking for a reason within myself, by first checking what I might have done wrong; but that is not what we do.
My immediate reaction is an angry confrontation with that bloody computer, as in: “What the *&^%$ is happening? God damn stupid useless piece of technology – I hate it, ignorant pile of crap…” And then I proceed to kick the Hell out of it till it expires right in front of me – I’m sure you go: Yeah, been there and done that…
When looking at the two very different reactions, we ALL vote for option one, where we search within ourselves first, to find out what happened and find a way to fix it (in the above case: push sleeping cat off keyboard). But we blindly race into option two, doing the swearing and kicking bit. So why do we do that? Why are we playing the blame-game?
I see us use blame as an innocent component in our everyday life; we try to hide embarrassment in failing, by placing responsibility somewhere else. So we use the: “I didn’t do it” approach. And in most cases it is innocent and a rather natural (yeah, right) reaction. Rarely do we use it to speak ill of, to slander, and/or to find faults with other people or as a reproach; we do the normal blame bit in a much milder version… And we started doing all this as little kids.
As a small boy, my brother spat on the dining-room table; when our Mother saw it, she asked what had happened. My brother insisted that it was the lamp above the table that had done it. My Mother didn’t get upset about the spitting on the table, but it was negating telling the truth she did not accept – early case of the blame-game. And we have all been there and done that; yes, even the angels among us (and you know who you are)…
For the most part I don’t think we do this with malice, as I firmly trust that we do it more so out of embarrassment, trying to avoid the fact that we made a mistake; in most cases nobody really cares. But of cause the blame-game unfortunate also evolves into bigger issues and becomes a huge concern, dramatically affecting a few as well as many in serious ways.
Criminals have a tendency to claim innocence by either stating that they didn’t do it (duh), or place blame on somebody else, no matter how convincing the forensic evidence stacks up against them (“denial” at its worst). They had an OOPS moment and can’t admit guilt – “The devil made me do it”, is another good one...
Alcohol and illegal drugs are getting a huge mountain of blame for so many things: affairs, traffic violations, idiotic behavior, more affairs, being loud at parties (been there and done that), slurry speech, just being stupid doing stupid things and the list is very long. Some issues are serious, others: …whatever?”
Alcohol and drugs are getting way too much credit; using any of the two as an excuse for pitiful behavior, is pathetic and irritatingly ignorant. I have certainly done my share of stupid stuff way back in my youth (1832), but in all fairness, I have never used the “It’s okay because I was sauced…”as an excuse (never done drugs – most of us “angels” don’t do that).
We have politicians blaming left and right, front and back. Why not use that wasted energy to find solutions instead, so we can move forward? Divorce courts are full of angry finger pointing with the blame-game at full speed. Shouldn’t they instead have looked at themselves first, tried to figure out how they each could have contributed to a better relationship, thereby have avoided court and lived happily ever after?
We play team sports and we win and we lose. We blame loses on others (defense sucked today), and take the wins as if they were our personal achievement. If defense sucked, why don’t we all think about how we each can help defense get better – by moving forward as the team we are supposed to be?
At the office, the large potential contract fell apart. Departments are scrambling, trying to find somebody to blame. Yeah, you can also look at it as searching for reasons why it fell apart, but the truth is that no matter how we pack it, blame is in the forefront, though we have a hard time admitting so. Let’s immediately admit to the failure causing the break-down, no matter who is responsible, learn from it, regroup and then move forward.
I have always respected people who announce out loud that they screwed up - because we all screw up at times– but we have such a hard time admitting we did.
When I hear somebody “blaming” something or somebody else for their own misfortune one way or another, I have a tendency to cringe a bit. If I know them well enough, I simple ask what THEY have done to fix it. Most answers are “huh?” - Which also explains why I don’t have many friends – of course.
Parker-Brothers should buy my philosophy about blame and make it into a board-game. Yeah, I know, my gentle readers are of course not into blaming anybody or anything for their OOPS moments – but all of us would still be great at playing Peter’s BLAME-GAME; don’t you think?
STEPHANIE FROM IRELAND
Is everything okay?
Cheers, Peter
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