In the English language, 'fault' embodies an odd concept . . . and a very telling one. At least in this world, whatever happens has at least one cause. Finding the cause of an event lets us in on the inner workings of its process: it reveals to us how something happened, so that we can either repeat or avoid the experience. Discovering causes gives us the opportunity to make changes and, at the same time, to exercise increased influence over the process of change — an influence that we call 'control.' That explains what a 'cause' does; now, what about 'fault'?
Finding fault is looking for more than the inner workings of a process; it wants to know the reason or motivation behind it. It asks for more than the 'how' of an event: it wants to discover the 'why' as well. Finding fault seeks to assign blame, and blame, in turn threatens punishment and generates feelings of guilt and, more particularly, shame. The psychological dragnet that fault-finding unleashes dredges up all sorts of negative feelings and behaviors. Yet, we've all had fault-finding used on us and, as a result, we've learned how 'useful' fault-finding can be as a tool for correcting behaviors that we find objectionable. 'Useful' — maybe — but effective? I think not.
All change has to have a starting point. What's yours? Where are you in space and time right now? More importantly, exactly where are you located on the road to where you want to go? Do you even know where your destination might be? Furthermore, even before you're certain of that, you still have to know where your starting point — your SitzimLeben — might be. Who are you? Where are you? Where are you going? How are you going to get there? And, what resources to you have to use? These are the questions that you have to begin with as you employ the life strategy that I call mindfulness. "The unexamined life is not worth living," said Socrates at his trial for impiety, according to Plato. Likewise, the greatest obstacle to creating a well-examined life is the habit of fault-finding.
How does this work (or, more accurately, how does this not work)? Fault-finding looks to ascribe blame for some real or imagined misdeed. Fault-finding deflects responsibility off the accuser (and onto the accused), and, in turn, it spawns a defensive reaction in the accused in a further attempt to avoid responsibility. Whether you're the accuser or the defendant, the motivation is the same: avoiding (denying) responsibility. The results wind up the same, too: burying the situation in so much confusion (denial and counter-denial, he-said / she-said) that the 'truth' becomes hopelessly obscured. As a result, all change becomes pointless. In this, he goal of this exercise has actually been achieved: to maintain the self-delusion.
There are two signs that you can look for that are infallible indicators that you're allowing yourself to slip into self-delusion: 1) looking to blame someone (or something) other than yourself; and 2) giving explanations or rationalizations for your actions. When either or both of these symptoms appear, you can be certain that you're indulging is the self-delusion of fault-finding (or fault-avoiding). When you think and act from your own integrity, you never need to apologize (find reasons) for or justify your behavior. Indeed, unless someone has administered a date rape drug to you and robbed you of rational control of your mind and body, there's no sense looking to blame someone else.
Here are the lessons you can take away from this: besides having the awareness to recognize the warning signs of self-justification and blame, it's important that you acknowledge that every choice comes with consequences, some beneficial, others harmful. You take your best shot at believing that the beneficial consequences will outweigh the harm; but you accept responsibility for them all. You focus your attention on how things happen the way they do, rather than why. You take your good experiences and build on them while, at the same time, you take your bad experiences and learn from them. You admit your mistakes; you acknowledge responsibility for your instances of bad judgment, you make amends you learn and you choose to change your behavior appropriately. To paraphrase old Socrates, "A life of blame and self-justification, of fault-finding and self-delusion is truly not worth living." How's your life coming along?
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2008 H. Les Brown
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