In Psychology, the theory is called self-serving bias. This life theory speaks to the issue of humans blaming other humans for their pitfalls; but ascribing glory and credit to themselves when they record rounds of successes. When things go wrong, we rarely blame ourselves. We are quick to push the root-cause on somebody else, especially people in our orbit. The self-serving bias describes when we attribute positive events and successes to our own character or actions, but blame negative results to external factors unrelated to our character. Blaming others for your uphill battles in life is a dangerous recourse against growth and advancement in life.
You must have heard many times lame blame-singsongs over the course of your life and living. You must have run into men and women who told you sorry and sob stories about how they could have broken through and succeeded in life if only they got help and assistance from someone close to them. You must have heard in their disappointment-drenched voices tell-tales of a slew of negative incidents they suffered, and hindrances they experienced as they hoped for something from somebody somewhere. In Nigeria for example, the blame-game is played in many full-capacity stadia. Followers blame leaders, and leaders in turn blame the global economy for deepening penury and calamitous hunger ravaging the nation. Everybody blames everybody and no one wants to take responsibility for the shenanigans tearing society into absolute shreds and smithereens.
We have heard it in families. I read about a barren woman who once shouted down her husband saying, “give me children, or I’ll die.” In her subconsciousness, the husband was supposed to be the manufacturer of babies who possessed no raw materials to create little breathing beings.
I have heard these zillion times: “If only I got the connection…,” if only my uncle had helped me…,” if only daddy had done a bit more…,” if only my boss had given me the opportunity….” If only… if only… if only… In my days and age of ignorance when I knew not much about life, I rode on the same ferry of blame. I thought this one-time journey called life was a freebie cruise where things you wished for automatically happen without lifting a finger. I never thought education was a rock of necessity upon which a man could build a cushioning castle. Acquisition of knowledge within the four walls of a classroom was what I considered a mere and measly exercise. I perceived academics as a boring strip of round robin unquixotic routine. How wrong I was.
In those trying years as a young man, I blamed significant people in my life for the debacle that befell me. That was the blame rap-song I constantly rehearsed and hummed in my spirit. And ahead of me was the success horizon my friends and peers had moved into at a very fast pace. But I had a few men around me who believed I had the cerebral capability to pass examinations I frequently flunked. Routinely flunking examinations was the jolt I needed to sit up and face reality. Life is only 10 per cent what happens to you and 90 per cent what you do about it. I gathered up the shattering dreams, set them on a platform of focus, and began to correct some things by myself. Situations you correct by yourself stays corrected correctly. Nobody will baby sit you. Everybody has his own cross to carry. Sometimes, blaming people may seem therapeutic and soothing, but it is an inadvertent copout from reality. It is a road that leads to backwardness.
A few human personalities may be truly responsible for your challenges, and a few may have hurt you in a way unimaginable. It may sound self-satisfying to blame them; but does this response get you back time and treasure you lost? Refusing to blame them hints that you are ready to move on to a higher calling and channelling your ways down to your dream goal. What ought to matter most to you is achieving your dreams. Hanging anyone on the crucifix of blame will not reverse what has been done.
I read the story of an educated, interesting, and good-looking man who couldn’t get any woman to marry him because he was vertically challenged. He had asked a few women out on a date, but they all turned him down. He blamed it all on his height. He said no one liked him, and his life was going down into the abyss. “Women are vain and superficial and will never like me.” The man lamented. Self-pity! Because he felt he was too short, he stopped trying to ask women out on a date. Is it true that women date and marry only tall men? Women don’t always hang up on height. They do on values more than that. Some of them this man possessed. Instead of upping the game on other values that would attract him to the bone of his bones, he blamed it all on his height. The man had chosen a metric that women are only attracted to height that he didn’t have.
It is time to sit up, stop the blame, and up your game. Upping your game means you take responsibility for your challenges, fashion out a way out, and move on up. Whatever has happened, or is happening to you right now is nobody’s fault. You cannot blame anyone for the flame that is not kindled in the unlit candle of your life. You hold the candle and it is your responsibility to kindle it alight; not anybody else. It is your life. You live it, and so you have got to love it and do right by yourself. Whatever has happened to you to date is nobody’s fault. Take responsibility for yourself because no one owes you anything. You owe yourself the good life you desire. It’s true that you may not be able to change some circumstances around you, but you can change yourself. You can change how you think and reason. The world does not partake in any man’s testimony and odyssey of failure. Human beings are attracted to success. They are attracted to big positions and men and women who control big organisations flowing with the milk and honey of riches untold. If some things are broken in your life, pick up the broken pieces and forge ahead. There are millions of people waiting for you to be a blessing to them. Stop blaming your parents who you believe didn’t care much about you, your friends who didn’t help you, your husband who didn’t love you enough, or your wife who betrayed you. Just up your game.
