The thing about blame is it lets us feel in control.
When things in life don’t go as planned – who’s to blame?
Sometime we blame others and sometimes it’s warranted. Sometimes we blame others and it’s really not.
Sometimes we blame ourselves and it’s warranted. Sometimes it is our fault. We didn’t show up, we didn’t keep our promise, we didn’t put in the effort that was required.
And sometimes it’s not our fault, but we blame ourselves anyway. I’m not good enough, not loveable enough, not hard-working enough, not thin enough, not forceful enough, not gentle enough.
It’s my fault.
It’s funny how, even when we’re not to blame, we often still like to make it our fault.
“If I had just ….”
“If I could only….”
“If I were more….”
“If I were less …….”
The thing about blame is it lets us feel in control. If it’s my fault, I can fix it, change, control it, prevent it from happening the next time. If it’s my fault, it’s not random, arbitrary and out of my control.
I have spent a lot of wasted effort in my life trying to change things about myself or my situation in order to avoid pain. I say wasted effort because many times I wasn’t to blame and all the gymnastics I did to try to fix the situation amounted to nothing. At the end of the day, I can’t be anyone other than myself – nor can anyone else. And that’s no one’s fault – it’s just the truth.
We don’t like how the world just randomly hands us things – things we don’t want, things we never asked for, things that are painful, things we can’t control. So whether it’s the fault of another person, whom we can’t control or there is no one and nothing to blame, we find we are out of control.
We'd rather be at fault.
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