It’s easier to point a finger outward than it is to point it inward.
It’s more comfortable to see the faults in others than to accept the faults of our own.
It’s less work to hold others accountable than to accept responsibility.
Accusations are not as scary as being vulnerable.
It’s simpler to rationalize than it is to be critically introspective.
Accepting responsibility rather than blaming is hard work. Owning your own shit is hard work. Making things right when things have gone wrong is hard work… especially since sometimes right just means better, and no matter what you do, you can’t get back to the way things used to be.
But when you play the blame game nothing gets better. In fact, things usually get worse. Most punishment and discipline is about blame. Being restorative means sharing the responsibility to make things better.
Accepting ownership of your own actions and consequences, that’s when personal growth happens. That’s when we get unstuck. That’s when we begin to create an empowered reality rather than a sense of victimization.
How do we make things better? That’s not always an easy question to ask, and it’s usually very hard to answer. But the answer is never blame.
