Home   >   Ask the Expert   >   When does the ‘blame game’ turn into the ‘lame game’?

When does the ‘blame game’ turn into the ‘lame game’?

By on May 15, 2011

Photo © Elena Derevtsova

 

Who is game? Who do you know is an unconditional aficionado of the blame game? Maybe do you enjoy it yourself from time to time?  Aren’t those moments of supposedly “economic downturns” such a wonderful and a unique opportunity to start a good old matchup of blaming one another?  Every single opportunity that you want to leverage can also be good enough!  And playing the game is not complicated at all. There is only one rule: slam the other as much as you want, so you do not give anyone the time to see that all you are doing is refuse to be accountable for a choice that you have made and that has generated dreadful consequences.  It is that easy! 

But have you ever wondered if embarking on a good old game of putting the blame on your spouse, partner, siblings, parents, friends or colleagues had the propensity to become lame at some point down the road?  Or is the choice of playing the blame game way too exciting to even start figuring out how damaging it is for you and your playmates?

Why is blaming others almost a second nature? 

Most men and women repeatedly make series of poor choices, and they constantly have to bear the dreadfulness of the consequences.  How many of these people elect to be fully or even partially accountable for the mishaps that they consistently create in their lives?  If you take a blunt look around you, it becomes apparent that only a tiny minority of individuals are ready to assume the full-on extent of the bad decisions that they take.  What type of stance do the rest adopt?  They simply blame their failures on others.  And it does not have to make any sense whatsoever.  Even those who played absolutely no part in the process can be concerned!  The blame game does not discriminate.  It invites to the party whoever and whatever can be used as a scapegoat.  Have you ever been invited to such a party?  Do you remember being there, while having strictly no clue how you ended-up there in the first place?  You were part of someone else’s blame game.  

For so many men and women, the choice to blame others is almost a second nature.  It is instinctive.  It is more than a reflex.  It is a way of life, an intrinsic part of who they are.  To play the blame game defines what they are.  Their entire value system is based on it.  What true advantage resides in embracing this type of value though?  Wouldn’t it be so much easier to acknowledge that a choice was not the best one at a given moment in time?  Wouldn’t it allow its instigator to do whatever is needed to attenuate the consequences of the decision, so life does not have to be affected too severely?  Consequently, wouldn’t it be so much wiser to learn from every single mistake, so selecting better options can finally become a possibility?  Sadly, it does not seem to be working that way.  Those who elect to make bad choices are so determined in their enterprise that it is almost impossible to invite them to open their eyes and potentially consider another alternative.

Where does this high propensity to blame it on others or circumstances come from?  Most individuals duplicate what they have observed at home while growing-up.  The reasons behind the most dysfunctional mentalities do not have to take their sources too far away from the family structure.  Home sweet home!   When a child has only been confronted to limitations, why would he or she suddenly embrace expansion as a way of being throughout his or her adult life?  When people do not know better, they stick to whatever they were taught, and they blindly trust the pertinence of their experiences.  This is how successions of dysfunctional generations are created.  Despite the cruelty of this reality, you do not have the right to let yourself be depressed and defeated.  There is assuredly nothing much that you can do for those who utterly refuse to seek expansion.  So you must stick to your principles and continue, regardless of the insanity of the world that surrounds you.

Many individuals have such an intriguing tendency to refuse to acknowledge every single one of their creations, which, once they are all summed-up, make what I would call “their life.”  People are programmed to look at the positive only, and immediately brush away the negative.  Anything that is negative is labeled as uncomfortable.  Therefore the idea of spending even a split second on something that cannot be a generator of instant gratification is totally unthinkable.  So they bury their heads in the sand and create great turmoil in their lives.  And as soon as disaster strikes, guess what?  It’s time to play the blame game.  When you hear, “How could he do this to me?” you know that the game is on.

At what moment does it get totally lame?

Carl and Silvia were married and employed by the same company.  Over the years, they had built up this iconic image of being the happy married couple who was living, working, investing and breathing together every single minute of the day. They were working over-time and weekends, never taking a vacation, so they could earn extra money to use for down-payments on houses in what was at the time a booming real-estate market.  One day the market stopped booming, and the next day they received a note letting them know that their company was being relocated.  The blame game started immediately.  Salves of bitterness were relentlessly exchanged.  “I should have never married you!  Just looking at how much of a loser your father is, I should have known better about you!”  “Without me, you’d still be living uncomfortably in your country with your illiterate brothers and sisters!  When I think that I could have landed so much better!”  Blame or Lame?

To point fingers often times lead to situations that insanity cannot even depict accurately.  I am pretty sure that you have already heard something similar to what I have just narrated.  What had become of all the, “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life!” that Carl would tell Silvia, while taking her hand and looking at her in the eyes?  How could anything have suddenly turned her into this useless third-world piece of trash that would only inspire resentment in her husband’s mind?  How could something that did not have anything intrinsic to do with their union have such a quick and devastating impact on their marriage?  Viewed from a different angle, how many lies about their own selves were Carl and Silvia living on a daily basis?

The choice to put the blame on someone else is a reflection of one’s refusal to truthfully look at his or her own self.  And such refusal is the mark of an individual who lives inside a constant lie about who he or she truly is.  How many folks do you know are totally unwilling to live up to their responsibilities and step-up to the plate each time they have created turmoil in their lives?  Isn’t it fascinating to observe that inside our society, self-accountability is not praised? To be accountable is wrong. If you admit that you were indeed at fault, it is instantly viewed as a sign of weakness. It is judged as lame.  This is completely insane!  Isn’t it crazy to realize that the one who decides to fight for his righteousness at all costs ends-up being the individual who is recognized?  He is the one who (supposedly) has strong convictions and the courage to stand for himself.  This does not make any sense.  It does not create room for empowering individuals to be fully accountable for their choices.  It promotes unconsciousness. 

Why does society tend to encourage lame behaviors?  For what reason groups do not promote the need to be entirely aware in regard to the ramifications that such or such decision may engender?  The problem is that people have been trained to think and process things in a way that does not give them the ability to broaden their horizons.  As long as the sentiments of comfort and security are present, it is okay to get back to sleep.  That was Carl’s and Silvia’s lives.  They had formulated decisions around what the perfect life was supposed to look like.  Their certainties to have reached a desired result forced them to occult everything that had the potentiality to disrupt their system.  Unable to face this reality called “their stupidity,” blaming the other was their sole alternative.  And that was lame.

You have the power to realize at any point in time whether a choice you are about to make will have the potential to bring expansion to your life.  It requires having the honesty to look at the source of this choice and assess, without being the subject of the dynamics of your environment, if it will actually work best for you.  

If you think that it is hard and it necessitates a tremendous volume of efforts, I would suggest that you think again.

What feels easier?  Is it to allocate all your energy toward blaming others for your own mistakes, or use this energy to generate exponentially greater for your own life?

Nicolas Roquefort-Villeneuve is a relationship counsellor and deals with unconventional relationship counseling and C-level consulting. If you have any relationship issue, e-mail nicolas@readytochoose.com www.readytochoose.com

About TF Tribe