Look What You Made Me Do!
“Look what you made me do!” From the time we’re tiny, this is a refrain that we often sing. Hello all, Henry back again today. Brothers and sisters, friends, parents, anybody, even the family dog can be blamed for making us do something we were not supposed to do. The key with this creative little maneuver is to do our best to project the event outside ourselves, to shift the blame onto somebody else for something we had done. This technique is currently very popular with corporate and government officials trying to avoid jail time.
The key with this kind of defense is to deflect the criticism outside, even strike before the criticism gets formulated. The milk is spilled: “Look what you made me do!” As children we may half know that the other person did not make us do something….but what about now that we’re adults?
The other day I was outside the grocery store when I heard a middle aged female who was clutching a paper bag say: “You made me buy these cookies. I didn’t want them.” The person who was following behind did not look the least bit guilty. Though I have no proof, I strongly suspect that her companion had not held a gun to her head and made her purchase the cookies.
I was surprised to hear such a childish argument from an adult. But I suppose that was foolish of me, as we all often blame others for our problems. In families, it is usually our children’s or parents fault. As I said, politicians make a career out of this process.
The problem is that as long as the problem is outside us, then nothing can be done to improve things, because it is someone else’s fault: If its somebody else’s fault then I’m certainly not going to do anything to fix it! What a terrific way to get ourselves off the hook. Our hardest psychological accomplishment is to come to the place where we can say, “I made a mistake. It is my fault. What can we do to fix things?” As we all know, this does not happen often.