Whose Fault is It?

Anger and the blame game might feel emotionally satisfying, but they rarely help us solve our problems.

When things go wrong, most of us get angry.  And then we try to figure out who is to blame for the problem.  The problem is, this won’t help us solve our problem.

It is emotionally satisfying to get mad.  It helps motivate us to take action. But when the action is to blame someone, our actions move us away from problem solving.

It seems figuring out who is to blame should work. After all, if someone caused the problem, they should fix it right?  Well, in an ideal world, yes.  But we don’t live in the ideal world. We live in the real world.  And in the real world, the person responsible may or may not be capable of fixing the problem they caused.

First, they may not know how to fix the problem.

Second, it might not be in their best interest to fix the problem.

Third, they might not care if the problem is fixed or not.

Relying on the person you are blaming for the problem to fix the problem is not a good strategy if you want to actually fix the problem. This is why as good as it feels to assign blame you are better off focusing on what you can constructively do to solve the problem.

If you need help, seek it out. Just be aware, people are more willing to help you solve your problems if they aren’t being blamed for them. Which is yet another reason why you should avoid playing the blame game.

Blame vs. Responsibility.

Why taking responsibility for your problems works better.

I am a big fan of personal responsibility. To me, responsibility is one of the pillars of the Humanist philosophy, along with critical thinking and compassion. There is a reason for that and that is because being responsible makes life easier.

There is a great article at Forbes about how blaming others for your problems makes your stress worse and why it is better to own up and take responsibility for your actions and your problems, whether you caused them or not.

One of the first reasons why the blame game is bad is because blame is rooted in fear and instead of assuaging your fears by blaming others, all that does is create more fear, not less. There is a reason for this.

When you blame others, you place the solution to your problems on others.  And that’s a problem because you can’t control others. You can only control yourself.  So, instead of helping you to regain control over a situation that is out of control, when you blame others, you are giving control over what happens to you to others. And that’s pretty scary.

A better response when something goes wrong, is to focus on responsibly solving the problem. What went wrong, how are we going to fix it and who is responsible for making sure it is fixed?  This is a much better approach to problem solving than – who is to blame and can we throw them under a bus in a panicked attempt to solve our problem without actually doing anything proactive to solve it?

The question I always ask people is do you actually want to solve your problem?  Or do you want to pretend to solve your problem?  Most people default to pretending to solve their problems not realizing how many additional problems that causes.

Don’t get caught in this trap. Take responsibility. Reduce your fears and start working proactively to solve your problems. You will be less stressed and less fearful if you do.