Lessons learned from the blame game

Alright. So, I'm at SRT school right now and I'm sitting here in my hotel room watching some CNN. Now, first, let me go through some things I've learned about myself this last two weeks. After that, I have some thoughts...

This last couple of weeks I've been learning some new skills for the Army. There's no need to go into what specific skills those are, however, I've learned a LOT about myself and also some reinforcing knowledge about myself. These things about me aren't favorable but they are things that I think can help me and others, hopefully.

I've learned that I don't easily take responsibility for my own blunders. I hate that I am like that because among other negative attributes, it's prideful and hurtful to personal and non-personal goals. What I mean by that is that if I would just take responsibility for my blunders and change so that I don't repeat my mistakes, then, especially in a team environment, my fixing my mistakes would increase the successfulness of said team or just myself personally! Now, let me extend this into broader scope. It is so consistent within our homes, schools, governments, and indeed our nation for people, groups, special interests, whomever for individuals within these groups to not take responsibility and then action to fix errors for actions for which responsibility was not taken that we have turned into an irresponsible society.

A few days ago I was yelled at by my team leader. He said something like, "...that is the problem with you! You don't take responsibility for your mistakes and instead want to blame your mistakes on other people...' It's not the first time in my life that I'd been told that I do this and as much as it kills my ego to hear it; it's also a mind-blowing smack in the face that causes me to self-reflect. Do I agree with what he was telling me? I don't agree with the thing he was telling me that I did wrong, but I do agree with him that I tend to try and remove blame from myself when it's not readily obvious to me that I did something erroneous. Why do I do that?? Ego/Pride? Perhaps an altered self-perception of my actions versus his? I don't know. However, I will say this; my example is a microcosm of the situation our country is in right now when regarding our politicians. To me, our politicians are one of two types: the type that turns their nose to problems and says, "It's not my fault" or worse yet "It's not something I can change". Either way, there are politicians in our government who are responsible for the way our country is heading right now. Is *ANYONE* taking responsibility for the state that our country is in? NO! Not a single official in the government. Let me say this too. I don't blame our president for the state that we are in, however, as our president, the state that our nation is in right now happened on his watch. Thus, he *is* ultimately responsible. I don't necessarily like or agree with that but if blame should be cast then that is how it should be done. Right?

To be continued...