The C.A.T. Principle – Global Ebook Awards GOLD & SILVER Winner for Best Self-Help Non-Fiction Ebook of 2014 & 2016

Blame: The Root of All Victim-hood…

Blame: The Root of All Victim-hood...Blame: The Root of All Victim-hood…

We love blame. It’s easy. It’s the fault of something or someone else, and what’s easier than that?  No need to self-reflect and no need to think. Life becomes a charm and we need not worry about mistakes because only others make them. We’re perfect and the world owes us, and if the world doesn’t pay up, then the world is to blame. Was it our actions? No. Was it our indecision? Of course not! Was it our laziness? Never! Blame is beautiful. It’s cheap and it’s expedient, but it’s also the root of all victim-hood.

Our lives run amok with blame and a day doesn’t go by when we don’t employ it. Never mind that we wave goodbye to self-responsibility with each dagger of blame we throw (see Surrender Self-Responsibility, And We Surrender Freedom…), No sense asking ourselves tough questions when there’s so many others we can take aim at. Besides, isn’t it fun watching others squirm as we pat ourselves on the back pretending to be the poor little person hard done by? The world loves good theater and there’s nothing more theatrical than that of the self-immolating, unrepentant victim. How true, but how sad!

Blame is ubiquitous. It’s found under every rock. From a corporation not admitting a mistake to a politician listing every reason why something didn’t happen, blame rears its ugly face. We bask in it and sometimes glorify it. We’ll even pay for it! German philosopher and playwright Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) seemed to recognize this when he wrote, “It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.” Schiller would have had a hay day were he to see the guilt floating around nowadays!

At the core of blame is abdication. When we blame we abdicate. We seek shelter from the tumult that introspection brings and in doing so abdicate our responsibility to self-reflection. We look outwards instead of inwards and as such never reach the true depth of our inner being. Our life becomes superficial as if skimming the surface of an ice rink falling down here and there, never truly grasping the meaning of the game. Hitting the ice we look upwards to see who could have done this to us, meanwhile neglecting to question that it might be our own skills to fault. It’s a pitiful existence to say the least, but then again for many of us the greatest consolation is pity.

Life isn’t so much a series of events happening to us as it is how we react to those events. Do we make events form us or do we form them, and if we don’t form them, do we at least try to shape them? How we answer this question is the true signal to who we are at heart.

If we answer yes to the former, then our life is a consistent flow of blame as we heap excuse upon excuse. Nothing can ever be our fault because it’s always happening to us and not by us – the ultimate state of victim-hood.

If we answer yes to the latter, then life is not just a consistent flow of activity, but it’s also the focus of our energy to make the most of every event. As a sculptor would do, we take the clay handed us and make the most of it. Without excuse or fault, we make our mark.

It pays heed to remember that blame is never the trademark of a genuine creator, but rather the impetuous sign of a true phony. It also pays heed to remember that blame is the root of all victim-hood.

So the next time we start to blame, we might want to think twice before pointing that finger; we just never know when it might come back pointing at us…

For more check out the Global Ebook Awards GOLD & SILVER Winner of 2014 & 2016, The C.A.T. Principle: Change, Action, Trust – Words to Live By available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. See the latest Amazon reviews here.

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The C.A.T. Principle

A 2014 Global Ebook Awards GOLD Winner for Best Self-Help Non-Fiction Ebook.

A 2016 Global Ebook Awards SILVER Winner for Best Self-Help Non-Fiction Ebook.

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