On blame…

Don’t blame others for the road you’re on. It’s your own asphalt.

Marcus Aurelius’ rule was: Blame yourself—or blame no one.

The causes of things are complicated, and rarely do they go how we’d like them to go. It’s easy to point the finger—at other people, at unfair conditions, at the weather, at the advice we got. If it hadn’t been for _______, I’d have won. Why did so-and-so have to get involved like that? It’s all _______’s fault.

And yet, the causes of things are also quite simple—the fault always lies with us. We’re the one who chose to listen to that advice, they’d say. We’re the one who left the outcome up to chance, who didn’t plan for all the contingencies. We’re the one whose expectations set us up to be disappointed.

It’s the other side of the idea that the only place to look for approval is within yourself. The same goes for disapproval and fault-finding. As soon as you try to get it from other people, you’ve compromised your integrity. You’ve handed over your power.

So, either don’t blame anyone…or blame yourself. For whatever happens. For everything that happens. Those are the options.

Don’t focus on what caused our troubles or who authored them and how much blame they deserve. Those questions are irrelevant distractions—answering them an exercise done only in vain. What matters is how we plan to move forward, how we plan to fix our situation, how we plan to respond to what life has thrown at us.