Let’s be honest, we’ve all done it (some more recently than others)…put the blame on someone or something else.
Make an excuse as to why you were late (‘traffic, kids, etc’) But how much do we own up to? Was there really traffic…or did we really just hit the Snooze button one too many times? Were the kids really feeling sick–or did we suddenly decide to change our outfit at the last minute?
Society has become great at coming up with excuses or pointing the finger to someone else. Rarely do we point the finger at ourselves…I am to blame because I decided to sleep 1 hour later than normal, I am to blame because I decided to have too many drinks so I missed your graduation…really, let’s be honest, a lot of what happens is in our control. It is easy to brush off negativitey by placing the blame on another (or coming up with an excuse) but this helps no one. In doing this, we simply ‘brush it off’ and disregard it. This then leads to the same occurance happening over and over again. When we are placed in the spotlight for doing wrong, we remember how we feel and seldom do it again because we learned from the experience. This can’t happen if we use someone else or make up an excuse…how about owning up to our mistakes? We are human and we are entitled to them…but we can’t and won’t become better people if we don’t let ourselves learn from our mistakes.
“Everywhere man blames nature and fate yet his fate is mostly but the echo of his character and passion, his mistakes and his weaknesses”
Democritus
brightworm 
I agree with this completely – it’s so easy to blame our circumstances or people around us. Most of the time, we have at least *some* control over things and we should be more accountable so that we don’t keep making the same mistakes.
I’m glad you agree…if something goes wrong, I’d like to think it wasn’t because of something I did (or didn’t do). I’m still young so hopefully this is something I can carry with me 🙂