How entertaining it feels when the control to change the channels on television by using a small black device resides with us? The same fun gets converted into fierceness when people start treating us like a television too. When they start pressing the buttons and playing with our emotions. Want to know how to stop such manipulation in your life?

I’ll tell you.

Take responsibility & Stop blaming.

We normally use phrases like, “This happened because of you” & “This could not happen because of you”. When you blame others you are giving them the control to affect your lives. Blaming them is like giving them the authority to change your moods and thoughts through their actions. Do you really want to do that? I mean, why in the world would you want somebody else to control your life?

Instead, imagine you are a person who takes responsibility for their own actions and circumstances. Totally independent with full control over your emotions and actions. No one in the world can affect you without your consent. How AWESOME would it be?

If you are the person responsible for your own life, how would you keep it?

Obviously, a happy & joyful one!

We all have blamed at some point in time, haven’t we?

First of all let’s accept the fact that we blame, as it will get much easier for us to eliminate that trait once we assure it’s existence. It is very obvious that to get rid of something, locating its presence is inevitable. If there exists a dilemma about the existence itself, then eliminating it will become much tougher. At some point of time in life, we all have played the role of a “blamer” and played the blame game to rescue ourselves from an unpleasant situation, right isn’t it?

Why do we blame?

Whenever we encounter an unacceptable event, the first emotion that hits us is ‘the disappointment’. Now, when we are disappointed, either we can take further action to change the situation or we can act slothful, finding someone to pass on the blame and shift the feeling of “disappointment” into a “reason why we are feeling disappointed” by playing the blame game.

Let us understand this with an example

A person goes to a seminar and takes a seat in the last row. As the seminar embarks, he realizes that the speech is not audible in the last row.

Below here I have illustrated how a responsible person will act (Mr. Responsible) and how the person who blames other (Mr. Blamer) will act in the same situation.

Responsible person – Case – 1

Mr. Responsible, being a responsible person will either search for a seat in the front row, so that he can hear the speaker more clearly and if he fails to find the seat, he will communicate about the problem to the speaker and ask him to enhance the volume or may get an extra seat arranged in the front row. Thus, resolving the problem.

A person who BLAMES – Case – 2

Mr. Blamer, being a person who blames, would sit in the same place in the last row and would neither look for a seat in the front row nor communicate his problem to the speaker. Further, being unable to derive the expected benefits from the seminar due to the problem, he will blame the organizers of the program and speaker for not being efficient.

In the above example, in Case – 1 Mr. Responsible brought the solution to his problem instantly by realizing that he was responsible for the situation around and took certain steps to improve it. In Case -2 Mr. Blamer, being disappointed by the seminar shifted his feeling of disappointment into a reason why he did not achieve the derived benefits by putting the blame on the organizer or the speaker. This is a very simple example I have taken from my personal experience, but please try to understand that we deal with many of our problems just like Mr.Blamer did and miss out on tremendous opportunities in our life.

People tend to blame because they FEAR to accept that it was their fault and it was due to them that they ended up in this situation. Fear comes from the EGO that we have. Our ego does not let us accept that it is our fault and in order to satisfy that ego, fear comes into action resulting in blaming. If I had to put it all in one sentence then, “The fear of losing our self-esteem triggers our mind to blame others”

Psychological projection is a theory in psychology in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. For example, a person who is habitually intolerant may constantly accuse other people of being intolerant. Such a projection also incorporates ‘blame shifting’.

Following are some other reasons due to which an individual may end up blaming:-

To flee from one’s responsibility To manipulate people To hide one’s flaws

Why should I not blame?

Whenever you end up in any situation where you feel like putting the blame on someone, just sit there and think about the benefits that you will derive by blaming somebody else. THERE ARE NO BENEFITS! If we look at the above example, Mr.Blamer did not gain anything by blaming the organizers. Moreover, he lost the benefits of the seminar by not taking any actions. On the other side, Mr.Responsible acted upon the situation and gained. So always remember that blaming is a “LOSS-MAKING” idea. Would you really want to enter into a loss-making deal?

Further, you will end up wasting your energy and time in putting blame on others.

Here’s another example,

Suppose a manager of an MNC, Mr. M allocated some work to the subordinate Mr. A and Mr. A ends up making a lot of mistakes in executing the work. Blaming Mr.A for the mistakes will not bring any improvement in the situation. Instead, Mr.M can be more careful while allocating work to Mr.A in future.

Should we blame ourselves then?

No! Don’t blame yourself. Take responsibility. There is a difference. When you blame yourself, a feeling of guilt develops and when you take responsibility you act to improve the situation without feeling guilty about it.

I leave it to you,

whether you want to spend the rest of your life independently & joyfully; or

blaming others for situations, being controlled by them(just like a television) and ruining the single precious life you have.