STOP THE
BLAME GAME
CHOOSE YOUR
BATTLES WISELY
“Do not complain, brethren, against one another,
so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right
at the door.
“Do not speak against one another, brethren.
He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother,
speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are
not a doer of the law but a judge of it. There is one Lawgiver and Judge,
the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your
neighbor?”
Just because you lose your keys, or the TV controller, etc., it does not mean
it is someone else’s fault. The “Blame Game” is deadly. It puts the
other person on constant defense. They always have to outmaneuver you and
therefore there is no real communication going on.
Choose your battles wisely. Life is filled with opportunities to choose
between making a big deal out of something or simply letting it go, realizing
(in the long run) it really doesn’t matter. If you
choose your battles wisely (and choose to be kind), you’ll be far more
effective in winning those that are truly important.
Some people fight over every little thing and blame someone else for every
little detail. For example, a statement like: “I was late for work
because you hid my hair spray” – which is in itself probably a false statement
as well as having left the person behind feeling injured and has set the stage
for further war when you get home.
The truth is, life is rarely exactly the way we want it to be, and other people
often don’t act as we would like them to. Moment to moment, there are
aspects of life that we like and others that we don’t. There are always
going to be people who disagree with you, people who do things differently, and
things that don’t work out. If you fight against this principle of life,
you will spend most of your life fighting battles and blaming others.
If you goal is to live a relatively stress-free life,
you’ll find that most battles are just not worth it AND why do you
always have to have your way, anyway? Does your preference of which
restaurant or movie to go to matter enough to argue over it? Does a small
scratch on your car really warrant a suit in small claims court? Does the
fact that your neighbor won’t park his car on a different part of the street
have to be discussed at your family dinner table? These and thousands of
other small things are what many people spend their lives fighting about.
Take a look at your own list.
There are times when you need to stand your ground and insist on the
right. However, remember to not blame anyone else (including your spouse)
if things don’t go exactly right. You can live a relatively peaceful life
if you take the effort to think things through before making a big deal about
them.
