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Figuring out the source of a problem is an important ingredient in generating solutions. To prevent a problem from happening again we need to understand where it came from in the first place. There is a time and a place in the process for that kind of analysis. Unfortunately, driven by anger and fear, we all too often leap directly to that phase then let its short term emotional payoffs seduce us into believing we have vindicated our anger and solved the problem all in one fell swoop.
The allure of the ‘blame game’ is not hard to understand. The simplicity of a world divided neatly into people who are good and those who are bad is appealing. Those who are good generate all the things which make us happy in our lives while those who are bad are to blame for all the thing we don’t like. The vast majority of us will always see ourselves as being good and if the things we don’t like are someone else’s fault that absolves us of any ownership or responsibility for any of those disliked things.
There are some of us who do go through life viewing ourselves as being bad and therefore to blame for all things wrong in all situations. Sadly, if we find ourselves trapped in that perspective it tends to be as a result of having the message we are bad repeatedly hammered into…