You've all met that guy or that girl. They're always complaining that they have it so bad, but nothing is ever their fault. They flunked a test or got a failing grade on a paper: the professor never liked them, has it out for them. Never mind that you saw them out at the big party the night before the test. They get fired from a job, and it's because the boss was biased against them, or because another employee lied about them. Never mind all the stories they've told you about how they cut work, or did as little as possible to get by -- they deserved that job.
Now think about yourself. I'm certain that we've all done something like this. I know I have. Let's face it, when something goes wrong, our first instinct is not to seek what we ourselves might have done wrong, but to start pointing fingers everywhere we can find. That's our culture today; everybody's lining up to claim they're a victim of something. Nobody wants to take responsibility for anything in their own lives, and everything becomes a giant game of the-buck-stops-anywhere-but-here.
Sadly, this seems somewhat inevitable when politicians line up to tell people that they are "entitled" to everything from a job to a mansion on the Malibu coast (OK, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but who doubts that some politicians would promise that if it would win them a few votes?). Where do people get off being so presumptuous? Even me -- where do I get off thinking I deserve that job I didn't get any more than the person who did?
Maybe that's also why, by and large, Americans are pretty ungrateful people. We're one of the richest, most prosperous nations on the planet, but we scoff at that because our car isn't new and shiny enough, or our house is on the wrong side of the tracks, or we can't always afford top-of-the-line designer clothes.
Not to say that some people aren't victims; ask any African-American who lived under Jim Crow laws or Apartheid in South Africa. But when we start thinking that every little downfall makes us a victim, we trivialize things like that. When we start thinking we deserve everything, we tend to marginalize and forget those who would be grateful to have one-tenth of what we do.
So what can be done about this? Certainly, the popular culture of avoiding responsibility won't change overnight. Maybe it won't ever change. But one person at a time can certainly change.
So think of this: if you're going through life blaming everyone else for the things that don't go right in your life and thinking you deserve to have anything you like, what is there to celebrate if you finally get that job, if you finally get an A in that class that had been really hard -- or to look at it on another level -- if that special someone you've been trying to get to go to dinner with you finally acquiesces? Sounds like a pretty dull life to me. After all, if you can't make your failures your own and learn from them, how can you ever make your successes your own, and take credit for them?
Write to Tim at Redbaron.strikesagain@gmail.com
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