June 28, 2011
"Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment." ~ Lao Tzu
It happens almost every time after an accident. Both drivers come out of their vehicles looking aghast and vehemently ask what is now a very familiar question, "Can’t you see?"
Adam blamed Eve for offering him the forbidden fruit. Eve, in turn, blamed the serpent and, thus, set in motion a "game" that is played even today.
I went on an imaginative trip to find out why our roads are in such a deplorable state. My first visit, naturally, was to the government department that awards the contracts. The chief blamed the main contractor. The main contractor blamed the sub-contractor, who blamed the material supplier, who in turn blamed the rain gods. When I met the rain gods, the blame went all the way back to the government department. Few will disagree that this is exactly what will happen if we were to make a real trip!
A few months ago, a biker crashed into a cyclist on one of the bye-lanes near a village. The biker quickly pointed out that the cyclist "popped out of nowhere." He was over speeding, but that never seems to bother him. What also does not bother him is that it was his fifth accident in less than a year.
Alcoholics blame just about everyone for their misery. Youngsters blame friends. Married men blame wives. Once the wife leaves, then it is the turn of fate to take the blame. Fate is easy because it does not debate.
The urge to blame someone for our problems is so great that we, having blamed everyone around us, eventually blame God. Like fate, God remains silent.
Let’s take a look at what all compulsive and habitual wife-abusers do. They blame the victim. Some victimized women, who become prey to repeated physical, verbal or sexual abuse, end up believing that there is something wrong with them and not their husbands. Many eventually go into severe depression.
Any form of abuse is inexcusable, unjustifiable and repugnant. In a recent talk I gave on forgiveness, I was asked if it was okay to forgive and reconcile with a repeated offender. Forgiveness? Yes. Reconciliation? No. Let me explain. It is far easy to say than to actually do it, but forgiving ultimately releases a great hurt and is extremely beneficial for the victim. Without forgiveness, the victim cannot move on to lead a wholesome life. Forgiveness, therefore, is an absolute must.
Reconciliation, on the other hand, is a totally different issue and is often misunderstood with forgiveness. While in a lot of conflicts reconciliation does go hand in hand with forgiveness, in cases of abuse, the victim should never reconcile with the offender’s actions. To reconcile would mean to encourage the offender. If blaming others does not change us, taking on the blame in the case of abuse does not change the offender.
Blaming others becomes a habit when the one who blames gets away with it. Often this sets in from early childhood.
When there is no one to blame, then the next strategy used is denial. Consider what happened after Cain killed Abel. God said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" Cain said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" The modern Cain is likely to ask God, "Who is Abel?" It would appear that intellectual evolution is running parallel to spiritual devolution.
Look at the stance parents take these days when it comes to their children. If there is something wrong, then it has to be the teachers, or the education department. This is one area God finds Himself luckily spared.
If we are capable of knowing that the government is ultimately responsible for the roads, then why are our children any teacher’s responsibility?
It is terrifying to even think that parents expect a teacher to manage sixty-five children in a classroom. We cannot manage the two or three we have been blessed with and, yet, without a second thought, expect a teacher to take care of children who come from sixty-five different homes, born to parents who themselves come from different environments.
In addition to the numerous tasks assigned to them, teachers also have to handle a growing number of children who are not only rude and misbehaved, but are increasingly getting physical. These are the very children who have no one to greet them when they return home. With no supervision, there is no telling what they watch on television or the internet. If that is not enough, there is a tendency for guilt-laden parents to end up pampering their kids.
I am not sure what is more scary – the fact that more and more children with such problems are finding their way to psychotherapy clinics, or that the syndrome actually has a name and is called Latch-Key Syndrome.
As human beings, we are both emotional and relational in nature. There is an urgency to narrate (vent), especially after time away from home. With no listening ear (at times both parents return only much later in the evening - too tired for any quality interaction), these children grow up with suppressed emotions, feeling unloved and even unwanted. If solitary confinement can devastate the hardest of criminals, one can only imagine the havoc loneliness plays on tender hearts. Studies indicate that latch-key children are more likely to experiment with addictive substances, watch porn, and commit juvenile crimes.
Recently, I addressed parents on "Empowering Children Through Love", in Mangalore. Later there was a question-answer session. A few parents were quick to tell me that teachers were responsible - while others blamed the education department - for their children’s problems. One mother asked if it was okay to give her fifth standard boy a mobile phone. Is anyone listening?
I know atleast one father who will think that asking for a mobile phone is reasonable because his son, who is in the seventh standard, takes the neighbour’s motorbike for a spin, and even drives the family car. I asked the father if it was okay to allow such a thing and he told me that his son "just does not take ‘no’ for an answer." Now we have junior for boss!
If teachers cannot be blamed and parents are beyond fault, it still can’t end there. That’s when we drag the media in. When alone at home, parents cannot really know what their children do. During a counselling workshop that I recently attended, I learnt that more and more school-going kids are hooked to whiteners, which they use as inhalants. We also have children, barely ten years old, being brought in for counselling because of addiction to pornographic material.
If the remote control of running this world falls into the hands of pampered children, then only God can help us because parents are unwilling to accept responsibility. The core of human wellness is deeply rooted in spirituality, and since this is so lacking, we are seeing problems not encountered before.
An article in Reader’s Digest rightly observes that shopping malls are our new temples. This is where we congregate. It is here we spend hours on end till we are exhausted, but we have a problem spending one hour in a prayer house. The good priests are under tremendous pressure from donors (read: moral gurus) to finish the Sunday service within the hour.
The same attitude is shown when couples come in for counselling. After playing the blame-game for fifteen years, with no clear winner, a man calls me for some answers. Mind you, they have a plane to catch the next morning, but are ‘willing’ to spare one hour for a lifetime of happiness. Wow! What such people need is to make a personal appointment with God. With futility written all over, the man will say, "I just don’t know how I fell in love with her." I know one thing, gravity cannot be blamed – that phenomenon is reserved only for falling objects, not emotions.
We try to deny the very mistakes that make us human. We also feel that blaming someone will make our own problems disappear. The moment someone points a finger at us, we innately build a wall of defense that says, "I can do no wrong; I am perfect." Depending on what we are being blamed for, we are also afraid of rejection. While in other cases we live in a state of denial, in some peculiar cases, we don’t want to change the way things are (particularly with people living in a state of self-pity).
"The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny." ~Albert Ellis
Wayne Dyer, an American motivational speaker, goes straight for the solar plexus when he says: "All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won't succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy."
A friend of mine told me that his mother never accepted any complaint he had about his friends. Far from sympathizing with him, his mother would strongly teach him to accept responsibility for the choices he made, and the choices he would be making in life. As a school boy he never understood it, but today he can clearly see the wisdom in his mother’s words.
I think it is something that we all should hold close to our hearts.
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