Stop shifting the blame, take accountability for your actions

When children fail at school, it’s common to find out why they failed and what they are struggling with in order for you to help them, so I asked my nephew and cousin why they failed.

Their responses astonished me, they blamed the teachers for not teaching them, they blamed other kids for making noise during a lesson and they also blamed the school for constantly changing teachers.

Mind you, they go to different schools.

So, in my quest for answers all I got was excuses and shifting the blame.

They blamed everyone except for themselves. They couldn’t admit their failure or take accountability for their own actions.

This reminded me of the story of Adam and Eve from the Bible. When it dawned on Adam that he had done contrary to the Word of God, he acted like those children and blamed Eve then Eve blamed the serpent.

Genesis 3 Verse 11-13

11  And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

12  The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

13  Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

They didn’t dispute the fact that they eat the fruit, but they eat it because of so and so.

They didn’t want to take accountability for their own actions.

They could have said no when they were tempted with a fruit but they decided to give a deafening yes.

God gave us free will, whether we obey him or not is entirely up to us. We are no different from these kids or from Adam and Eve.

We are a generation that is full of excuses, a generation that likes to blame others for our own actions.

It has become a norm for men to blame women for wearing skimpy clothes as an excuse to rape them.

It has become a norm for people to abuse one another and blame it on their upbringing. It has become a norm for people to get involved in the life of criminality then blame it on the government for not giving them jobs.

It has become a norm for the police to take bribery and blame it on a low income or for the politicians to eat out of the state’s coffers and point fingers.

When people are caught cheating they shift the blame, even though it’s their sole responsibility.

It’s an individual’s choice to cheat and to stab people in the back. People are accustomed to hurting others when they are called to order, they shift the blame, no accountability whatsoever, no remorse, and they carry on as if it’s the right thing to do.

Doing wrong and blaming others has become the order of the day.

People are losing Ubuntu because they are too proud to take accountability for their actions, they would rather treat you bad than own up to their actions.

Owning up to our mistakes is a hard thing to do, the easy way out is to blame someone else for our own mess.

Until you own up to your actions, you will never grow. Growth comes with doing an introspection and rectifying your ways.

Acknowledging your mistakes and making amends is the key to growth. Taking accountability is like digging for gold.

Gold is rare and hard to find, in order to find it one has to keep digging and digging, it requires hard work, sweat and pain, it doesn’t come easy, that is how hard it is for people to admit their wrongdoing, for them to humble themselves, ask for forgiveness and rectify their ways.

For as long as you don’t see anything wrong with your actions you will never change so the first step is to recognise that what you did is wrong.

You can never correct what you deem as normal or the right thing to do. Adam and Eve didn’t see anything wrong with their actions instead they shifted the blame, my cousin and nephew didn’t see anything wrong with their failure instead they blamed everyone expect themselves.

Taking accountability is hard but it is the right thing to do. It may ruin your reputation but one day people will respect you and will always use you as an example.

If we can all take accountability for our actions the world would be a better place. There would be less pain and sorrow, there would be less betrayal and killings.

The world would be a happy place for most people. We must all take ownership of our actions in order to improve as a society.

May we all deny our will so that the will of God can prevail. May we never enjoy seeing other people in pain because of our actions.

May we do a deep cleaning of our hearts and get rid of whatever is not meant to be there. May God help us to be bigger people who will own up to their actions.

Stay Blessed.