The human nature hates to be blamed or be told off. In today’s world, taking responsibility and being responsible is not very ‘appropriate’ to many. We opt for very poor choices in life, love and marriage and if things don’t go our way; we look for someone to blame. The economy which has failed us, our parents who didn’t do much to make life comfortable in our adult life and the spouse who didn’t tell us he/she has got a ‘beasty’ side. We always blame others for our shortcomings. Whilst some will not blame others, they will make excuses…

Blaming others for a mishap is a short route of escape for the feeble minded (and I unfortunately learnt that too late in life). Proud people are flabbergasted by the fact that they’ve made a mistake and thus would want to push it to others. They are too ‘important’ or too ‘brilliant/smart’ so they do all within their power to apportion the blame to the next available space. You cannot be too smart to ‘dodge’ the consequences of an irresponsible behaviour – you sink deeper in the mess and blaming another is not smart either.

What we experience in life, what we see others go through (good or bad) and the problems we assist people to solve should one way or the other have an impact our lives and in our future. If you come from a chaotic home where chaos was the order of the day; you either choose chaos or calmness in your adult life. After living with students and seeing how they struggled with school, money and work (not because their parents failed them but….); I made a vow to myself that my children will not go through the same thing (unless it’s beyond my control).

When your partner/spouse is a blame shifter, it puts so much stress on the relationship.They always would want to attribute failure to what others did or did not do. There is never a mention of their part in the situation at all; they make others the weak link of every breakage. Our choice of words and how we sometimes throw words about is very important. What sparks fire is the use of words and words that can extinguish the fire. Little things can turn to a big fight because of what was said, how it’s said and when it was said. Taking responsibility by accepting you are at fault.

We all make mistakes in life but there may be one ‘small’ mistake which can ruin our lives, family, career and many other important things we’ve worked hard for. That is the mistake we can never forget in a hurry. If you witness how a friend or family member’s mistakes caused major havoc in their life and you go through the same thing, you are the failure; it’s like sitting an exam with the answers right in front of you and still failing woefully.

An illiterate is not just the person who has never been to school but the one who never learnt anything during his/her irresponsible life and idiotic choices. They do the same thing hoping things will change and if it doesn’t, they’ll blame others for their woes. Our ways are always right in our eyes so the person/s we are even blaming for our misfortune thinks he/she is also right!

If we don’t take responsibility for our poor choices in life and always shifts blame on others and the universe, life will always be unfair to us and we’ll still go round in circles without any improvement. We cannot expect people to treat us kind/well all the time but if you keep putting yourself out there for the same people to make you miserable, you don’t blame anybody. Just bite your tongue and say to yourself – ‘if I had not made myself available to this person to do this…..’ it’s more liberating than blaming them for making you miserable.

Blame the devil? Didn’t your pastor tell you the devil has resigned from the ‘blame throne’?