Responses to Responsibility

I’m tired of people not taking responsibility for their mistakes, their oversights, their forgetfulness, their wrongs... This fatigue announced itself to me the other day when I watched two cars nearly collide (as near misses go it wasn’t that dramatic, both had time to stop) and immediately a car horn sounded out aggressively. Now firstly, the fact that in a moment of threat and danger the first instinct of someone is to sound the horn rather than take evasive action or make sure everyone is alright is sad in itself. However even more significant is the fact that both of them were equally to blame or in fact not to blame. A mistake was made by both of them that resulted, thankfully, in no harm done. This didn’t stop the noisy accusation of fault coming through the airwaves loud and clear.

Obviously this is a trite example, but it illustrates my wider point. I find myself, some days, around people who are far too eager to blame anyone and everyone for their circumstances or actions. It has come to the point where it is a refreshing change to meet someone who is prepared to acknowledge their mistakes therefore give themselves the opportunity to move forward. There seems to be three general reactions to getting something wrong…the first is to play the victim, often exceptionally eloquently. Instead of an acknowledgement of what has happened, or what they’ve done they instead present a list of all the things that have gone wrong for them and therefore caused whatever is the centre of concern…often these issues have nothing to do with what is being discussed. The second is utter denial - despite all evidence to the contrary, the perpetrator of whatever it is denies having anything to do with it, and again this denial can be more than eloquent. Finally, and the one that really irritates me, there is the aggressive response. Here the person at fault ricochets away any responsibility with their shield of sometimes violent belligerence.

Now I’m not pretending that owning up is easy and all of these behaviours are more than understandable. Equally the tragic and relentless circumstances that some people find themselves in are more than reason to want to cast around for anyone to take some of the weight of their reality… My concern is this, with no acknowledgement of responsibility there is no power to change anything and then the same mistakes are repeated again and again…Where, as a practitioner, I see the most exciting developments is with those people who have a clear vision of self and actions and in addition the impact they and their behaviour have on the wider world. I’m happy, eager even, to take on the responsibility of facilitating an environment where that can happen…hoping that people are prepared to meet me half way…when that happens everything feels a little more right with the world…