Taking the Blame

First he hid in the trees.  Now he hides behind someone else’s actions.  And Eve was quick to follow suit:  “It was the serpent.  He deceived me…”

Thanks to lots of practice down through the centuries, we’ve turned hiding behind someone else’s actions into an art form.  While we give ourselves undue credit when things go well, we are lightning-quick to shirk responsibility when things go badly.  If it’s just a low-grade fever you’ll see “passing the buck.”  But the unmistakable symptom of the full-on disease is the blame game.

And unfortunately, blame is contagious.  A recent study by the Stanford Graduate School of Business shows merely being exposed to someone else’s blame attribution is enough to cause people to turn around and blame others for completely unrelated failures.  All you have to do to “catch” the blame virus is be exposed to someone else passing the buck.* I don’t doubt it.  Look how quickly Eve caught on.

We think we’re helping ourselves when we blame others.  But a Harvard Business Review author indicates otherwise: “…research shows that people who blame others for their mistakes lose status, learn less, and perform worse relative to those who own up to their mistakes.” *** Even secular psychologists agree: “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.”****

So, unlike Adam and Eve, own your action without blaming others.  If it’s a mistake or failure, learn from it and move on.  If it’s sin, here’s how to deal with it: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  Blame short-circuits forgiveness because forgiveness can’t happen if we won’t call it what it is (confession).

Blessings,

** “Blame is Contagious…”  Stanford Graduate School of Business article

*** Harvard Business Review article

****Albert Ellis, psychologist