"Only when one recognizes the fault as a fault
can one be without fault"
I say don't blame yourself or anybody else because it's a negative approach. Learn what you can, embrace it and move on.
Everything is my fault
71–80 of 106 posts
Re: Everything is my fault
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think interpreting these posts in the literal manner that you and the grandparent are doing is a bit misleading. If you read what the OP wrote in the most literal manner, he sounds like a nutjob. You're right - there's no way to say that it's his fault that everything happens. What if a stranger had a bad day for his own reasons, and decided to use that as an excuse to be rude to the OP? Or someone broke into his h…
I used to feel and act exactly like Derek: let's just pretend everything is my fault because that's how I will learn to be better regardless of whether other people could have been better too. What I've started noticing, though, is that after doing this for a couple of years, when it's become automatic, it gets difficult to differentiate between "for the sake of learning, let's assume this is my fault" and "this is a…
This was my reaction as well. My default behavior for years has been to assume everything as my fault. The big turn for me occurred a few months after my ex cheated and I ended the relationship. I kept thinking, "What did I do that made her want to cheat?" But that's a very misguided question. Her behavior was completely outside my control. Eventually I was able to simply accept that it wasn't my fault, and it significantly improved my emotional health.
I get that OP isn't being completely literal or universal. But there is a whole class of neurotic self-blamers out there that could stand to learn the opposite lesson: some things are not your fault.
Re: Everything is my fault
#73This reminds me of the idea that leaders share the credit when things go right & take the blame when things go wrong. I've personally found it to be a far more productive way to live. Instead of looking to blame others, I try to look at myself and ask what I could have done better. It focuses my attention on the one person I have the greatest power to change... me.
Re: Everything is my fault
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Derek, you need to move on and let the past be there, in the past. All the stuff you are writing about is about the same thing that happened years ago and we all know about it. It's time to move on, we want to know what's next.
Agreed! But most everything I write about will be in the past. I'm a slow learner. I figure my current experiences are not very valuable to others. It's only valuable once I've learned something sharable from it, and that usually only happens in hindsight.
You have done much better than many of us, allow us to decide if your current experiences are valuable or not... you have always been a source of motivation to a lot of people, keep the positive attitude.
Re: Everything is my fault
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Natural disasters aren't a great example, because we can and should prepare for them. As the saying goes, "earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do."
Natural disasters are a perfect example! You can plan and prepare all you like but in the end there are no guarantees that your planning and preparation will protect you. So if a natural disaster did happen and for the sake of argument you did everything within your power to prepare and did it perfectly yet still had something awful happen, is it your fault? Consider too that natural disasters are not central to any…
Planning and preparing won't guarantee your survival, but it will sure do a lot to increase your odds. If person A spends hours meticulously testing his building's structural integrity and invests money to reinforce relevant safety mechanisms, while person B does not, is it person B's fault if their house falls down while person A's does not? No, it's not really, but they could have done more.
There aren't ANY guarantees in life (except maybe this one), but I think the point of the article is to try to show the benefits of an internal locus of control. There will probably be things in everyone's life that they have little power over, but that does not mean they are completely helpless. Rare is a situation where any action on someone's part has a 0% chance of changing the outcome.
Re: Everything is my fault
#76Nothing is really anybody's fault. People only do abusive things because somebody else previously did something abusive to them. This is not likely provable, it's just a belief I have. Of course victims still need to express their anger and abusers need to be held accountable, but it's also important to ask, "How can I not be an abuser or a victim in the future?" Of course a complete apology feels good, it provides a…
> People only do abusive things because somebody else previously did something abusive to them. This is not likely provable, it's just a belief I have.
I used to think the way you did, and then I discovered sociopathy was real. There are people who quite like hurting others, and there's no point in appealing to their empathy because they don't have any.
The best that can be done with these people is to give them incentives to cooperate.
If one accidentally ends up with one of these as an employee or a boss, one could fairly blame them... unless one also takes responsibility for sociopathy-detection.
Re: Everything is my fault
#77Nothing is really anybody's fault. People only do abusive things because somebody else previously did something abusive to them. This is not likely provable, it's just a belief I have. Of course victims still need to express their anger and abusers need to be held accountable, but it's also important to ask, "How can I not be an abuser or a victim in the future?" Of course a complete apology feels good, it provides a…
> People only do abusive things because somebody else previously did something abusive to them. This is not likely provable, it's just a belief I have. I used to think the way you did, and then I discovered sociopathy was real. There are people who quite like hurting others, and there's no point in appealing to their empathy because they don't have any. The best that can be done with these people is to give them ince…
I know that there are sociopaths and psychopaths, I just don't believe that they're purely genetic conditions, but rather ones that develop due to being the victim of abuse. There may be genetic predisposition, I wouldn't be surprised. I also don't believe they're fundamentally incurable conditions. I'm not saying that blaming or getting angry at an abusive boss makes no sense, but rather that going forward the best thing to do is either resolve the conflict or run away from it gracefully.
Re: Everything is my fault
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
The real world is somewhere in the middle. Many people do excuse their own weaknesses by becoming the victim of everybody else's evil. It is important to recognize when you really are a contributing factor. Sometimes, you really are at fault. On the other hand, I read this part and realized the OP had jumped the shark: Someone was rude to me today? My fault. I could have lightened their mood beforehand. It's your fau…
I think interpreting these posts in the literal manner that you and the grandparent are doing is a bit misleading. If you read what the OP wrote in the most literal manner, he sounds like a nutjob. You're right - there's no way to say that it's his fault that everything happens. What if a stranger had a bad day for his own reasons, and decided to use that as an excuse to be rude to the OP? Or someone broke into his h…
I actually would have read it exactly like you did, if he hadn't included the examples. I was shaken by the girlfriend example. It is certainly possible it was all Derek's fault, but few relationships ever end solely because of one person alone and I think you limit what you can learn if you don't recognize that. How do you learn what we're negative reactions to your negative actions things you really did wrong) versus negative reactions to your positive actions (the things that, if you change, will turn you into a co-dependent person)?
However, the "rude to me" example put it over the edge. At that point, it really doesn't read as "really introspect and figure out what I did wrong". Instead, it reads as "literally everything is my fault". And nothing in the article softened that view.
Derek commented elsewhere he agrees with you, so I'm not here second-guessing how he feels. I do think, however, that somebody coming in and taking this as advice for how to live could wind up in a world of hurt.
I buy "A whole lot of the crap that happens to me is my fault (much more than I give credit to)", but "It's all my fault" is wrong and dangerous.
Re: Everything is my fault
#79This 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.
You offered two possible attitudes: "nothing is my fault" and "everything is my fault", then stated that the second was a "generally more productive mindset". It doesn't matter, because the most productive mindset is this:
step 1 - Here is a problem. [goto 2]
step 2 - Do we need to assign blame at this moment? If yes [goto 3]. If no [goto 4]
step 3 - Assign blame [goto 4]
step 4 - Is this a problem I should be involved in solving? If yes [goto 5]. If no [goto 6]
step 5 - Help solve problem [goto 6]
step 6 - Problem does not exist. Do we need to assign blame at this moment? Go right ahead.
All of this should go without saying, since this is the essence of the engineering and hacker ethos, and we can therefore make the assumption that at a website called "Hacker News", everyone understands this intuitively. But if you look downthread, you will see that some people legitimately don't think like problem solvers yet.
Re: Everything is my fault
#80No, 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…
There's no other way to put this, so I'm just going to come out and say it: you're not only flat out wrong, you've got the truth backwards.
Forgiving people implies that said person has done something to wrong you. Thus, you're still placing the blame on other people. Research has shown that blaming others is ineffective at best, and harmful at worst.
The best approach: forgive yourself. Accept that you've done something wrong (even if you didn't realize it at the time), figure out what you could have done to prevent it, and then get over it. Life's too short to play the blame game, even with yourself.