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Everything is my fault

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Re: Everything is my fault

#41

Post by cma »

llambda wrote: post #11

No, it's not your fault. And this is just a mechanism of deflection. Step back from your solipsistic convictions for five minutes and realize that your rationalizations here only serve the purpose of avoiding forgiveness. You have decided that not only are you not a victim but in fact you and you alone are responsible for everything and therefore you don't ever need to forgive anyone. Moreover you have now implicitly…

You can find a more balanced/nuanced approach in David Foster Wallace's This is Water:

http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in...

Re: Everything is my fault

#42

Post by Symmetry »

staunch wrote: post #3

I shouldn't have been wearing such sexy clothes or walking alone in the park at night. It's my fault.

Well honestly I'm a fairly big and imposing guy but there are places in the city I wouldn't go late at night by myself. "Fault" is a complex set of things, and while if I was mugged wandering the Fens at night the moral culpability would lie with the muggers, but there are a lot of people who made decisions that were neccesary-but-not-sufficient for that to occur. And it's always worth looking at the part of the causal network that ran through your decisions in such a case, and thinking about whether you could change the way you make decisions such that the world will be a better place. In this example, I would have know that going to these places late at night was dangerous and could probably have reasonably avoided it, so I think feeling stupid in that case would be pretty justified. But if it was someone else, I'd probably confine myself to laying blame on the morally culpable.

For a woman assaulted while they were wearing sexy clothes, well, is there much evidence that you're actually in more danger when you do that? Even if a woman makes herself some iota safer by dressing down, wouldn't that make things an iota worse for every other woman out there who might want to decide differently.

Just because you can prevent a failure by making different choices doesn't necessarily mean that you should. I might be able to protect myself from betrayal by never trusting anyone, from hear-break by never loving, but that doesn't make either of those the right decision.

Re: Everything is my fault

#43

Post by te_chris »

killahpriest wrote: post #35
btilly wrote: post #10

Something like this appeared in Good to Great . In a study of CEOs who lead their companies to significant improvement that lasted after the CEO stepped down, they found a common personality characteristic. The best CEOs constantly were watching for problems, took responsibility (aka fault) for everything that went wrong, credited everything good to others, and then anything that could not be credited to someone they…

Reminds me of Kevin Rose blaming Digg's failure on waking up one day to realize that everybody in his company was a B/C employee. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2352521

So he collectively blames all his staff for his failure? Nice, really nice.

Re: Everything is my fault

#44

Post by paul »

This is a great attitude because it moves the locus of control from outside of yourself ("I'm a helpless victim of everyone else") to inside ("this is my fault"), which is generally a more productive mindset since it puts you in control of your life. Obviously if you then translate that control into guilt, it breaks down badly, but I don't think that's what he's advocating.

Re: Everything is my fault

#45

Post by bpatrianakos »

This is not a good thing. In the context of the article it seems more like a defense mechanism than anything else. Yes, it's good to take responsibility and people don't do it as often as they should but to take on the mentality that everything is your fault is unhealthy. In this context it looks like it stems from a need to be powerful and in control all the time.

The truth is, we can only control efforts, not outcomes. Sometimes things aren't your fault, you are the victim and while believing its your fault may shield you from feeling bad about it, it ultimately sets you up for failure. When you believe everything is within your control you're in for a rude awakening because a lot of bad random shit will end up happening. Once enough bad things pile up and you're still thinking its your fault, those feelings you're trying avoid by pretending you're all powerful will begin to bubble up and then you think "not only is everything my fault, but no matter how much I learn I just can't get most things right. So now I'm in control and suck at it".

This is classic avoidance. A defense mechanism. A more healthy attitude would be to identify what is in your control as well as realize and admit the things that are out of your control and cope with them as they come. By all means, take responsibility and he in control of your life because lord know most people aren't but also remember that there's no shame in admitting some bullshit happened that was out of your control and subsequently feeling bad about it.

What happens if there's a natural disaster? It's your fault you didn't predict it and lived or worked in a certain place? What about a key figure in your business dying suddenly? Are you at fault for not keeping good enough watch? The example of someone being rude right in the article is a great one! Of course it isn't your fault if someone is rude (at least not always)! Sometimes people have shitty days or attitudes and it has nothing to do with you! Besides being a defense mechanism you could argue that this attitude may stem from egomania.

Re: Everything is my fault

#46

Post by sokolski »

It's impossible to live like that! Taking responsibility of ones actions - sure, but taking the blame even for random events is useless. Why does it matter whose fault it was, as long as you can learn from it? You don't need to feel guilty in order to spot the errors. It looks like making me feel worse about myself without any good reason. Guilt is a powerful mechanism and abusing it like that might lead bad consequences.

Re: Everything is my fault

#47

Post by bpatrianakos »

llambda wrote: post #11

No, it's not your fault. And this is just a mechanism of deflection. Step back from your solipsistic convictions for five minutes and realize that your rationalizations here only serve the purpose of avoiding forgiveness. You have decided that not only are you not a victim but in fact you and you alone are responsible for everything and therefore you don't ever need to forgive anyone. Moreover you have now implicitly…

Thank you for this. I can't believe anyone would applaud this mindset. For some reason we seem to applaud extremist views here and don't stop to think about how practical or unhealthy they are. There's a small minority of the population that has found success in being extreme in some way but we are not those people. We want to be though. We want to be the Steve Jobs or the Elon Musk or the Richard Stallman that has these eccentricities, these rare and extreme personality traits, these strongly held views and model ourselves after them all the while thinking "if he can do it, so can I" and duping ourselves into believing these things are okay. That we'll be the lucky ones who are able to pull it off. And when someone with a little star power like TBray says something like this we want to jump all over it because we believe that this will help us make it to the top and be like them.

But it won't. These people have some great advice and knowledge to share and I, like the rest of us, are more than willing to take it in and implement it but an article like this is dangerous and not good advice. But it's hard to recognize that when it comes from someone prominent because if they're so successful and they think like that then logic dictates that if we do it too we'll have an advantage, right? Not always. Each of us perceives the world differently and we gt by in our own unique way. I guarantee that if any one of us normals became prominent figured and successful in startup culture then there'd be stories and legends of some obscure thing we do that made us successful. I'd also be willing to bet we write about some of those things and people would cling to every word, applaud it, and think to themselves "I've gotta try that!" whether it was a good idea or not. It's not that anyone is trying to give bad advice, it's just that we don't know it.

Re: Everything is my fault

#48

Post by joezydeco »

klochner wrote: post #32

I personally take a proactive view of my environment, but Derek's post is lacking moderation. From the description of Battered Person Syndrome [1]: - The abused thinks that the violence was his or her fault. - The abused has an inability to place the responsibility for the violence elsewhere. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battered_person_syndrome

I honestly think Derek's article slips into sarcasm at the midpoint and nobody is picking up on that:

Someone was rude to me today? My fault. I could have lightened their mood beforehand.

At least when I read this, the message I got is that it's easy to blame yourself when overthinking failures, but in reality it takes two to tango.

Your girlfriend dumped you out of the blue? Where was her communication? That guy that stole $9,000? He's still a thief. Those are things out of your control.

Re: Everything is my fault

#49

Post by jbranchaud »

bpatrianakos wrote: post #45

This is not a good thing. In the context of the article it seems more like a defense mechanism than anything else. Yes, it's good to take responsibility and people don't do it as often as they should but to take on the mentality that everything is your fault is unhealthy. In this context it looks like it stems from a need to be powerful and in control all the time. The truth is, we can only control efforts, not outco…

I totally agree. It is important to take responsibility, but this is going to far.

Furthermore, this trivializes the situation of those that feel burdened by failure.

Re: Everything is my fault

#50

Post by [deleted] »

smsm42 wrote: post #34
arbuge wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite so, but most people can control more than they give themselves credit for. Think again before you give up on some things. You can effectively control the weather you get by moving to another city/country. The companies sending you checks are 100% in your control - it's your career choice. Not sure why you'd want to control the people in the streets - sounds a wee bit tyrannical :-)

Actually, most of what we understand by "politics" is exactly that - people banding together to control other people - on the streets or sometimes even in the privacy of their homes (like drug laws, occupational licenses, etc.) It may sound tyrannical but it is not only natural - it is one of the most common things out there.

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