Let me show you something amazing...
Have you ever met someone who never has a problem? I’m sure you know the type: it’s always someone else’s problem, mistake, fault, limitation or stupidity that causes their personal suffering. This person will practically grab you by the ear and spend hours telling you a tale of woe of how other people or forces of nature and the universe are somehow conspiring against them to ruin their day, week, month, year, or life. They use up your time and attention foaming at the mouth about how the world and or people around them need to change and how they not only have the clear insight to make a superior judgment as to how best to fix the world and or people around them, but also that it is no less than a travesty that they be inconvenienced by this insufferable occurrence. You know. The friend or relative who’s just a crabby, cranky pain in the ass? Or whines so much you could put France and California’s vineyards out of business if you could bottle it?
Does this person sound familiar? Is it you?
People waste time blowing air about how there’s something wrong and then never do anything about it. I’ve got news for you: if you’re just talking, complaining, or bitching about a problem, it isn’t any closer to getting solved since problems don’t solve themselves. If you’re busy blaming someone else for it, you’re taking even less responsibility. Why should you take responsibility you ask? Simple.
Inherent in everything we do or think are presuppositions. These are things that you just assume to be true. We presuppose that the sun will rise tomorrow. We presuppose that if we jump off a skyscraper, we will turn into Jello on impact with the ground. Now, these are both perfectly reasonable presuppositions. There are quite a few that we have that aren’t, however, and they’re usually the presuppositions we have about ourselves and our capabilities.
A lot of people presuppose that if they’re an asshole to people, they’ll be hated and rejected. Others may presuppose that if they’re an asshole they’ll be able to bully whatever they want out of people. The first ones are the timid, overly polite people who are afraid of being assholes while the second ones actually are the assholes. How they approach people when they want something differs based on the presuppositions they have.
Now, what happens when you “BMC” (bitch, moan, or complain) about a problem? I’m sure you feel angry-outraged perhaps-and maybe a bit frustrated. I’ve noticed that some people even seem to feel more important when they BMC and bring attention to themselves-it all depends on the person. The question, though, is if this BMCing is actually satisfying or if it’s draining? Most people would probably find it pretty draining and the reason for this are the presuppositions people use when they’re BMCing.
Problems don’t solve themselves. Most people know this. But they still BMC. Why? Let’s make this simple. If you need to change a light bulb in order to see in your basement do you get a spare bulb, go down there with a flashlight and change it, or do you sit around all day and whine about it? Of course you change the light bulb. Easy, right? Now what if it was your car that was broken and you had no idea what caused it. Perhaps you’d spend a day bitching about that-unless you know enough about cars that you think you can figure it out. And if you were an experienced auto mechanic you wouldn’t even hesitate to grab your tools and have a look. The mechanic presupposes that figuring it out will be no problem, and the knowledgeable person presupposes it’s at least possible for them to figure it out. The person who BMCs all day presupposes that they have absolutely no power to fix the car whatsoever. It’s all about perceived ability.
Let me say that again. BMCing implies that you just can’t change the situation and thus the only action you can take is to talk about your frustrations to vent them. As such, the BMCing just validates your helplessness-makes it seem more real and reasonable-and makes you even less likely to take the action needed to solve the problem since you’re making up reasons why it’s not your responsibility. And, after all, there are some people who will spend all day BMCing about changing a light bulb without doing anything about it. The excuse they may give is that they don’t know where the light bulbs are (they’re incapable of finding it), they can’t afford a new one (they’re incapable of supporting themselves), or they’re afraid the light bulb will zap them (they’re easily hurt), or something else equally ridiculous and that in all these cases they just aren’t able to take the steps necessary to replace it. People believe some pretty funny things.
Another funny thing people do is blame others. Again, the presupposition is that the problem and solution lies entirely with another person. Unfortunately, we just can’t control other people all the time, so there’s extra frustration to be had there when the problem (the other person) doesn’t fix itself. And the more you want the other person to fix things for you, the more you resent them for not changing, and the more you bitch and blame them, and thus the more helpless you feel.
Now, what if you were to take this and turn it around 180 degrees? What if you actually took responsibility for the problem? Responsibility is something that’s different from blame. Blame is just what scapegoats get (like the people you may have been bitching about). If you’re responsibile for something, that implies that you’re able to change it in some way. It implies you have choice, and some degree of power over the problem. It doesn’t imply that you have all the solutions to the problem, but instead that the problem doesn’t have complete control over you.
Now, there are definitely advantages to throwing around blame. As long as you’re the victim, the other person is the opposite of you-a victimizer-and it becomes a black and white good guy versus bad guy scenario where you’re the oppressed good guy. Everybody likes to be the good guy and everybody knows the bad guy is wrong. Being the victim allows you to feel like a good guy and thus feel good without doing anything. But the problem still hasn’t been solved by throwing this blame, whether the problem is a simple misunderstanding between friends or a war between nations.
I honestly have very little tolerance for victims. They tend to cling to the wrongs that were done to them (whether real or perceived) in order to keep that self-righteousness that allows them to avoid taking responsibility for moving on with their lives regardless of what happened. My belief is that, quite simply, if you’re not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
And this is where it comes back to what people believe about themselves. Victims believe that they aren’t capable of doing what it takes to rectify the situation. The person who hates his job believes he isn’t capable of finding a better one or that he isn’t important enough to negotiate better treatment from his boss. The victim of PTSD believes (falsely) that they’ll always be controlled by their fears and anxieties. The divorcee who hates all men is really just covering up her feelings that she’s vulnerable or unwanted. The outcast claims that society shuns him when he really just believes he’s unlikeable and pushes people away before they can reject him. The list goes on. And there’s more.
People blame society, the government, or “the man” for all of life’s problems and conveniently forget that societies and organizations are made up of people just like them. People want to change the world and change those around them, but they don’t even stop to realize that change happens within individual human beings before societies can change. Since each individual is the only one who is capable of taking responsibility for his or her life (because what other human being has time to watch over you 24 hours a day and make all your decisions for you?) things only change in your life if you change them. But because of some false limitation that a person may have learned from other people and chose to keep on reinforcing themselves, most people decide to throw around blame instead and waste their time and others’ time on BMCing.
So how does one take responsibility anyways? The best way is to find those limitations you’ve learned and un-learn them. I do, as always, recommend 3D Mind(tm). But remember that the blaming and BMCing only reinforces the limiting beliefs you may have, so making a commitment to stopping the BMCing stops the problem from getting worse and is the best first step you could start on. Plus, without all that extra frustration and anger, life is more enjoyable, people may actually enjoy your company more, and you may find your stress disappearing! Then as your perspective changes you can begin to notice that you do have options, even if all you can do is not let your problems ruin your day or learn from the experience so you don’t repeat it. The key to responsibility is that you’re doing everything you can to improve things, and thus you’re not helpless anymore.
So how do you want to live your life? It’s all about you after all, so what use is passing the buck onto others? Do you want to live a life of anger, frustration and powerlessness, or do you want to take responsibility and control over it and leave all that crap behind? It’s your call, and you do have that choice, so instead of bitching about things, what are you going to do about them?
