Stop Playing the Blame Game

by Reuben Chow

When something goes wrong in your life, what is your first reaction to it?

If you are like many people, your instinct would probably be to find someone or something to blame.

It seems that for every problem we have in our lives, every single thing that is lacking or that we find unsatisfactory, each failure we encounter and each obstacle or insurmountable challenge we face, there is somebody or something at fault.

Of course, there will always be many external circumstances and factors which are completely out of our control and which have played a significant part in the undesirable elements which exist in our lives. But the extent to which some people would blame their parents and ancestors, the government, the weather, friends and colleagues, God and even the whole world for their problems can be quite amazing.

And, chances are, these people would rarely or never blame themselves for their predicament.

Which is strange, because the only person in the whole wide world who was always there whenever you had an issue, encountered a situation or made a mistake was – yes, you.

You see, there is a big problem with blaming others when things go wrong for you. When you always blame others, you are practically absolving yourself of responsibility; you are implying that no fault lay with you – and there are some people who really have the mentality that they are always right and that blame can be laid at the door of everything and everyone under the Sun except themselves.

When blame is always placed upon others, you will never learn, because to you, there is nothing you did wrong and hence nothing to learn. It’s his fault, her fault, their fault, God’s fault, or the world is just screwed up; never my fault.

Of course, this does not mean you should blame yourself. Taken to the other extreme, blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong is extremely unhealthy.

But what we need to do is to take some degree of personal responsibility for everything that takes place in our own lives. In that way, we learn, we grow, and we become better persons. After all, it’s your life, right? Who better to take responsibility for everything about it than.. YOU?

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