Someone told me long ago that, blame is an excuse to grow up. I think is very true? If you look around you, the people that blames other people for their own actions, most of time, are in the same place emotionally, for example anger, we tend to say something like, “you made me angry”, “I wouldn’t have shouted at you or hit you if you did not say or do that to me”. Or, “if was not for you, I would have been where are I am today”. A. Ellis said that, the best years of our lives are those we choose our problems are our own. We do not blame our mother, ecology or the government. We control our own destiny.
There are many reasons why we possess the blame behaviour. First, it could be something we have learnt from our guardians/parents when we were growing up. If we saw our parents talk their way out by blaming someone else of the bad situation whether at home or on environment, we are more likely to do the same hoping for the same result. Secondly, it could be because of culture or environment we grew in, if they will punish someone who admitted to their mistakes, we are more likely to blame others of our mistakes so that to avoid punishment. Thirdly, it could be that, we want to project to others that we are better than them, and that, we are not flawed as the situations seems to presents itself. We don’t want to be judged as weak, reckless or unacceptable. We want to keep our status quo.
There are many reasons why we blame others for our negative behaviour, some of them, could be because we don’t want to be responsible or our negative actions. We are not ready to change and be responsible for our actions. Secondly, could be because we don’t want to be in a vulnerable position. For example, if my boss admit she is done something wrong, this will put her in a place where she may feel that, she is not good enough to what she does, in order to protect her status quo, she will deny the responsibility of the negative actions.
There are many consequences of blaming others. One of them is that, our personal growth will be compromised. It is hard to grow when we feel or convinced that, we have never done anything wrong, this means that, we are in constant place of defending ourselves, but if we could remove the defensive mechanism and see the situation as it is, perhaps, we may come to realisation, we are the one who need to change and no the other person. Secondly, our emotional state will also be compromised because, when we constantly blame others for things they have not done, it is a sign that, we don’t have empathy. The other person will suffer painful emotions when discovered that we have blamed them for something they have not done, if we don’t care how they feel, this means we are no longer empathetic people. If this continues, we may possess the narcissistic personality which has more consequences.
Humility is the cure for blame, because, when we realise that we have no special importance that makes us better than others, we will start paying attention. We both know that, before destruction a man’s heart is condescending, but humility comes before honour.