Do you? Is your cry – ‘it’s not my fault!’. Do you try and fob off with a ‘…but she said…’ or a ‘…but he was doing…’ or ‘… but what I meant was…’ to justify why you did/said what you did? While you attempt to deflect responsibility elsewhere, is there a small voice in the back of your head that reminds you that whether or not that was the case, you chose to do (fill in the blank). Or do you try and quiet that voice? It really never works and there is little relief until you acknowledge your part in whatever occurred.
As any child will tell you, pointing fingers really never works. You will end up ‘paying the piper’ eventually so pointing fingers only has a momentary success rate and the eventual price is far dearer. I remember the old saying that if you point your finger at someone, you have 4 fingers pointing back to you. And that is most uncomfortable. Sadly, we still do it. At the moment of confrontation we still hope that maybe, just maybe we can extricate ourselves by (mis)directing others’ attention. If it does work, it will still come back to get us.
Why do we continue in a behavior (pointing fingers) that we know with certainty that it will never work, or not for long? It appears that ‘pain’ (now) is best served later. Not always. If (fill in the blank) is our fault, then the immediate ‘punishment’ is far less then the baggage we carry thinking that later is easier. We receive a ‘double portion’ in that we carry the waiting-to-get-caught as well as the eventual punishment. And none of that is new information but still we continue in self-defeating behaviors.
Admittedly all that’s been said has been slightly tongue-in-cheek but it is a behavior we all engage in that is totally baffling. It serves no purpose. Which leads me to… what do you see as the alternative to pointing fingers? If it is a behavior to deflection that you are attempting to find – not gonna happen. However, why is it so difficult for us to admit when we are wrong, face the consequences of our actions (or lack thereof), make whatever amends we can… and move on? We waste far less time, energy, and ‘resources’ when we simply raise our hand and say… ‘my bad, now what can I do to help resolve the problem? Will we ever learn this lesson?
