Musings on Blaming and Responsibility

Blaming assumes that people and things and situations “should” be different than they actually are. You can argue with reality all you want, but you can never win. What you can do is stop wasting your time and energy and attention imagining that things should have been different than they are, and, instead, if that is what you truly wish, do what you can right now to make them so.

So many people whine and whimper and defend themselves and their failures, blaming them on others and the situation instead of using their so-called failures to grow in understanding and being. Such people seldom find themselves in the right place at the right time. And they never will.

The ability to respond, to adapt, intelligently and effectively to often seemingly impossible conditions and odds, is part of the power and beauty of the human brain and nervous system, part of the mystery of the human spirit. This response-ability, however, has to be exercised if it is to be a vivifying factor in our lives. And if one doesn’t exercise it in small ways as often as possible it probably won’t manifest when we really need it in more important situations.

Here’s an example of what I mean by exercising it in small ways. The next time something small goes wrong in your life, instead of allowing yourself to be seduced by the first thought that arises (it must be someone else’s fault), see that thought for what it probably is–defensiveness, laziness, and habit–and look and question more deeply. Is my judgment actually true? Perhaps if I had left home on time and hadn’t had to rush I wouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had that car back into me when I was driving by (this actually happened to me). It doesn’t mean that the person who backed into me isn’t also responsible. What it does mean is that the situation most likely wouldn’t have happened had I been taking care of my own real business.

So much of what goes wrong in our lives happens because we aren’t looking and listening and sensing, we aren’t paying attention–we aren’t present. No blame here; just a simple reality for which each of us is ultimately responsible.

Copyright 2011, by Dennis Lewis. For daily practices, insights, inspiration, and much more come visit me on my Facebook Author Page. Be sure to click “Like” to receive my posts in your news feed.