THE BLAME GAME

The blame game is a situation where one party blames others for something bad or unfortunate rather than attempting to seek a solution. 
Accusations exchanged among people who refuse to accept sole responsibility for some undesirable event

ILLUSTRATIONS

Husband and wife fighting over burned chicken stew.

A wife blames her husband for not doing anything in the house. She  argues with him because he comes back from work, seats on the couch and turns the TV, then open his Sunday Newspaper and read. 

While she is cooking, she is also washing dishes and packing up the house and watching the kids are playing outside the house. Later there’s a heavy dark smell of burned meat in the house... The wife blames it on the husband for sitting and not helping. He blames the wife for being careless. Later that evening he decides to go out to take a walk and stumbles over some wood and dead leaves in the road and falls and hurt his elbows. He started shouting at his neighbours for growing too many trees that keep the street dirty.  

Now, I wonder how manny people think he is right....

 A young woman is raped at a party...

·        The Society blames her dress code,

•           Others blames her timing of going to the party,
•      The village blames the mother for not teaching the child good manners, the mother blames her husband for being absent all the time, if he was home she would have not walked out to seek validation from other people. The daughter blames herself for wearing a shirt dress... Its just a big spider web that society needs to untangle. The society loses value in the eyes of others. The police can’t be fully trusted because they blame the victims, the child can’t trust own decisions because of the experience.

The good and the bad

When things go right, we look inside

When things go bad, we look outside (most of the time)

For example, imagine taking a driver’s test. If you just pass, then you will likely make it an internal reason – I studied hard, I’m actually a good driver naturally. But if you just fail the same test, suddenly there is an external reason – the weather was bad, it wasn’t the car I usually drive, I didn’t get enough sleep.

Why do we blame people (when people blame others)

1.    It’s used as a defence mechanism: usually could be a form of denial, self-protection or shifting responsibility from self to others.

2.    To protect our ego: .Others can use blaming others as a way to protect their self-worth or self esteem. So you blame others so that you don’t lose your assumed dignity before people or to look better against accepting your own faults and flaws. It you blame someone, it puts you in the superior seat, making you feel more important and ‘good’ person as opposed to their ‘bad’.

3.   It’s as easy tool to use when under attack and feeling defeated. You blame others to compensate for your weakness or lack of preparedness

4.    its easy to blame others than accept responsibility 

5.    People lie. You can blame others because it’s easy to tell a lie than to admit the truth.  If you stop lying you could have a more fulfilling relationship 

What if I use cop out to self-blaming to avoid being too hard on themselves

·         The brain only knows the reality you create.

·         You must be careful not to create a brain tattoo of a bad person in you while you are not.

·         When things don’t work out well, of you fail and start to say “i'm a bad person, i'm dumb, I am not capable, I am ugly, etc… the brain records that… the more you do that or repeat it, the more real it become.

•     The challenge is that first, your wrong perception of what went wrong due to your “fault” becomes a reality of your own, not others. Such that when people come to pick you up from that fall, it will be hard because the you almost fall twice or more from one incident,
•       The second challenge is that you begin to live as a victim of that failed incident
•      The third thing is that you begin to lose your confidence and your self-esteem. When you want to do something similar to what you blamed yourself for, your brain will remind you of the brain tattoo: that you were once or twice responsible for error in the same spot… what makes you think you can’t repeat it?

·         In short: escaping into blame mode limits you

·         But escaping into correction mode empowers you.

Will we ever have a situation where we are not looking at anyone or anything to blame at all?

Who should take the blame? Does it matter who you blame?

·         Taking blame is pointing a finger…

·         The moment you chose to “blame someone” you automatically remove yourself from the equation and immediately develop a negative attitude towards it or even be reluctant to participate in correcting it.

·         Taking responsibility is accounting not only for the wrong, the failure or the problem, but taking a leading role in finding and implementing corrective or improvement measures.

So, the correct question is not who should take the blame? That’s a negative question altogether, but who should account for correction and prevention of the errors? That is an empowering question.

How easy can it be for one to escape the blame game syndrome?

I like the fact that you call it a syndrome, because I think it’s a disorder

But for you to be able to escape the blame game, you need to understand some things in life.

I read a story about two rabbits: let me share this with you:

Once upon a time there were two rabbits who were the best of friends. They were so close that even their families used to come next in priority after their friendship.

They used to play together, fight of other rabbits together and eat together.

One, unfortunate day one of the friends gets caught by a Wild Dog. All the other friend could do was watch from a far distance as his best friend is eaten alive.

He felt strange, He was scared, he felt sad, he was helpless; he was overwhelmed, He wanted to die, He wanted to live, He was confused, He was utterly devastated.

Let’s say it was you in that situation, what you would do:

1.    Take responsibility for your life. Failure to accept responsibility is failing to lead. Responsibility means ability to respond (Respond-Ability)

a.    Be aware of what is going on (both your internal or thought processes) and the external (influences)

b.    Accept the consequences. Many people are ready and eager to get praises and cretid for good things and forget that things can go wrong. Can go hoo haa. Be ready for it.

c.    Resolve to improve. If its business failure, raise up and do better, if its relationship failure, raise up and be the one to love more and give more, if its personal failure, raise up and take charge of building a better person.

2.    Seek help from  outside

3.    The big part is here: know and understand the things you can change and the things that are outside of your control.

Why do people blame themselves

Effects of blaming of finger pointing

1.    In society that is full of violent behaviors, it can actually end up protecting the perpetrators. Our society is built in such a way that a victim of abuse, rape, negligence is not empowered to talk about the things that hurt them.

2.    Research shows that victim blame has serious consequences for the mental health and recovery of survivors, and has been shown to predict depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress. Victims are less likely to seek further assistance if they have experienced a negative reaction following disclosure, heightening their distress.  (Robert Muller, Psychology Today). He further writes that Common reactions include blame, anger, and disbelief, and can even extend to the refusal of assistance for victims seeking help. Such attitudes can be seen among police, physicians, and counsellors who may treat sexual assault victims with considerable scepticism, discouraging them from speaking up.

TIPS:

Can it be solved:

Somehow yes:

Societal perspective:

1.    Society needs to learn Positive accountability: this means to thoughtfully akbowledge an error, your own or another person’s and continue to seek ways to repair it if necessary

2.    Confidence in people: this could be more often with parents showing confidence in their children or Spouses showing confidence in one another. Or teachers showing confidence in their learners. One of the biggest source of immoral behavior is Brocken family. Sometimes because the family did not show positive reinforcement on their children or support their children in their dreams. A child who is told is good eneough is likely to perfume well at school. But a child who is blamed for bad things happening to others is likely to lose his confidence and then blame others.

Personal level:

1.    Develop self confidence. Have faith in yourself

2.    Learn to take responsibility. It’s the only way you can be able to correct errors and rechalenage failed attempts

3.    Seek help: sometimes blaming others can cause your brain to shut down from attempting positive turns. You may end up thinking everyone is against you.  Look at the Appartheit for example: we have talked so much about it that we end up seeing every other color as negative.

4.    Learn to focus on a future or the future that you can impact of possitvu influence not a past you cannot change.

5.    Focus on positive things than negative things

6.    Take responsibility: failure to