The blame game
Anyone can play the blame game.
Your parents aren’t rich enough, your boyfriend is a jerk, your boss is a sadist and your cat refuses to be house trained. Your life is a mess and it’s Everyone Else’s Fault… or is it?
For Linda, life couldn’t have been worse. She’d just failed her finals. Her parents were up in arms about her college fees gone to waste. The bank was calling her about her unsettled credit card bill and her rent was overdue.
Linda blamed it all on Ravind, her ex-boyfriend: if he hadn’t dumped her one week into their last semester, then she reckoned she would have been alright. But, still not satisfied, she went on to accuse her best-friend Madeline of refusing to help her out of her mess.
“I sat through at least two dozen nights of crying after Ravind left her,” says Madeline, now no longer Linda’s confidante. “But the finals were coming up. I had to start studying, you know?”
Loading ...The fact is, Linda did not want emotional support. Madeline says that she was in financial dire straits long before Ravind left her — in fact, Linda was secretly hoping that he’d be the one to help her out of her debt. That was the real reason why Linda was so upset when he left: suddenly, she was facing those bills all alone. Madeline even thinks it possible that Linda was then counting on her to come up with the cash, and when Madeline went back to her books without even suggesting the financial aid she needed, well, things got that much worse.
Linda was not available for comment, of course. But you get a feeling that she’d defend herself tooth and nail and blame everyone else for her troubles. Because that’s the way it is for women like her: it’s always Someone Else’s Fault.
Victim mentality
Barbara Baker, President of TEAMCares Inc., an online support organisation, calls it ‘victim mentality’ — when everything that is wrong with your life is because of someone or something else. It’s always an external force, but never, ever yourself.
No arms, no legs, no blame!
“If you do not get the promotion it is because Mr. So-and-So was out to get you,” illustrates Ms Baker. “Not because he found you playing on the Internet every day.”
Linda isn’t alone in viewing the cruel world through the distorted eyes of one who has suffered disappointments before — who among us have not met with rotten luck now and then? But then, I think we can all admit to at least one occasion when we unfairly pinned the blame on everything else but us. We all have our ups and downs. But unlike Linda, we don’t all need to feel blameless to get on with life after these setbacks.
Although accepting blame for everything isn’t healthy either, it is imperative that you be able to admit when things are your fault — that is the problem many women face, especially today’s empowered woman who believes that she is still being oppressed by sexists and tradition. For Linda, assigning the blame to someone else meant that she had absolved herself of all responsibility for her mess.
“Life is easier when you can play the blame game,” says Baker. “The blame game makes it easy for your life not to move forward or for you to grow.”
Culpable responsibility
The average child receives 432 negative comments per day versus 32 positive ones. And, in America, the same child only gets 12.5 minutes per day in communications with their parents or caretakers.
A baby's first scolding.
“Of that time, 8.5 minutes are spent correcting, criticizing or arguing, leaving a whopping 4 minutes per day for the instruction of values, morals, ethics, attitude and self esteem,” says Baker. “You were once this child.”
With all that negativity to deal with, it’s no wonder we grow up having a hard time seeing the good in the world. Most of us emerge from childhood being able to acknowledge when we’re to blame, and when not. Some don’t, and live life with deeply ingrained victim mentality — how can you tell if you are one of them?
“The first step is to listen to yourself,” says Baker. “Are you blaming others in your life for all the distress in it? Are you not accepting responsibility for your actions? Are you giving some other person the power (by blaming them you are giving them the power) to have control in your life? Do you look at life as being unfair to you and that everyone else gets the breaks?”
Tough questions to answer. But shying away from answering them truthfully can hurt you more than you expect.
Blame the economy
“Blaming others is one of the worst things you can do in relation to emotional integrity,” writes Carole Nicolaides, President and Executive Coach of Progressive Leadership, Inc. “It is distantly related to an addiction. Pretty soon almost everything that does not happen according to your liking becomes someone else’s fault.” Nicolaides advocates a six-step approach to learning to accept responsibility for failures instead of trying to censure others (see sidebar: Six Steps to Blaming Less).
Patricia, a successful 33-year-old project manager, used to blame her boyfriends — all six of them — for their break-ups. But these same boyfriends all went on to have fulfilling, long-term relationships with other women. Two have gotten married.
“I used to think that all men were out to sabotage my life,” Patricia admits. “But when I went for Felix’s (one of her ex-boyfriends) wedding last year, I realised that the bride could have been me. It made me wonder why I couldn’t get that kind of happiness.”
If you can't blame a man, you can always blame the economy!
The first thing Patricia did was Blame the Man again — all men want someone weak-willed, someone pliable, a woman to wrap around their fingers. But then Felix’s new wife was a successful lawyer, which shot her theory to bits. So Patricia did what any project manager would do: she called her ex-boyfriends, one by one, to find out what it was that made their relationships fall apart.
“It was revelatory,” says Patricia. “Of the four that I managed to get in touch with, three said that what drove them crazy was the way I always blamed them for whatever went wrong in my life.”
Patricia attributes her philosophy that ‘The Man is Always Wrong’ to her mother, who, after her husband left her, inculcated the idea into all her children. All she was trying to do was protect them from the evil that men do, of course. But Patricia took what she said a little too far.
“Thinking back, I realised that it was true,” says Patricia. “If I didn’t have enough clothes, it was because He didn’t take me shopping often enough. If I had a flat, it was because He hadn’t pumped my tyres. If I was late, it was because He held me up at home. It’s a wonder they put up with me for as long as some of them did!”
Patricia has found the courage to confess that she is not always right, and that Men are Not Always to Blame for everything that goes wrong. But it took her many years — ¬¬and many tears — to learn her lesson.
Everyone is blame-shifting these days.
“Habitual blamers continually look outside of themselves for the solutions to their problems,” says Nicholas J. Gabriel in his book, The Road to Lasting Success. “They blame their parents, or their teachers, or their neighbours and friends, or their spouse or boss for their current situation. Or, if they do find any fault with themselves it’s always something external. They are too fat or too skinny, or too tall or too short, or too heavy or too light, or their hair isn’t right, or something. It’s everything and anything BUT their attitude, their choices and themselves.”
Women like Patricia keep running, blaming and changing the external aspects of their lives… like boyfriends. Sometimes, they find something or someone that provides temporary happiness, and they come to believe that they have found the answer.
“Unfortunately, what usually happens is that they reach a point where they notice that something is still missing,” continues Gabriel. “They just aren’t as happy or as satisfied as they expected to be. So once again, they look at the external rather than internal aspects of their lives and the pattern repeats itself. For some people this pattern repeats for the rest of their lives.”
Accepting responsibility for your failures is the first step towards positive change. If you can’t do it all at once, don’t try to. Take it one small step at a time, from why the fridge has no milk (because you haven’t bought some more), to why your career is at a standstill (because you have not hit your goals).
Some things really are others’ fault. But for everything else, it’s usually you.
Six steps to blaming less
Carole Nicolaides, a Certified Professional Coach and President of Progressive Leadership, Inc recommends these six actions points to becoming more responsible for yourself:
- Be aware.
- Respond responsibly.
- Be honest.
- Don’t burn bridges.
- Be a good role model.
- Have a positive and grateful attitude.
Too often we fail to notice that we are playing the blame game. It’s a natural defence mechanism. Paying attention to how we respond when questioned about our actions or performance is the first step in taking responsibility.
Just as blaming is a defensive move, so is reacting. But rather than react, we should respond. While we might want to react immediately with a burst of anger, stop and consider the choices. We have a choice of reacting impulsively or responding cautiously to the situation. What will your choice be?
Some people simply like to place blame in order to be relieved of responsibility. That shows a huge lack of self-honesty. Lying to yourself only makes the problem worse… not better.
What happens to relationships when you place blame? You are unlikely to earn forgiveness. You are more likely to alienate yourself from your co-workers, peers and friends by pointing fingers. Not only will you ruin relationships, but you will also lose the trust of the people whom you work with.
When others see you accepting responsibility for your actions — and when they see the extraordinary results you are getting — you make the statement that blame-placing is not acceptable behaviour. By doing so, you help promote an atmosphere of harmony and integrity.
If you are grateful for all the things that happen in your life (good and bad) you simply cannot hold angry feelings toward others, or place blame where it does not belong.
