I've spent a lot of my life denying responsibility for me and for my beliefs, values, attitudes, thinking, behaviour, feelings, and outcomes.
Here are some ways I've done it.
I've blamed:
- Nationality
- Social background
- Genetics
- Childhood influences
- Family of origin
- Conditions
- Diagnoses
- Predispositions
- Temperament
- Character
- Personality
- Habit
- Ignorance
- Incompetence ('I'm not very good with technology')
- Emotion (particularly fear)
- Other people
- Western civilisation
- Addiction
- Alcoholism
- Co-dependency
- Powerlessness
- Unmanageability
- Etc., etc.
Now, these may present challenges, but, as an adult, I am ultimately responsible for how I deal with these challenges.
I've also shifted blame more subtly. One particular way of denying responsibility is to say I'm powerless over people, places, and things, whereas the truth is that my power is merely limited: I am not stripped of power entirely. There is always plenty I can indeed do.
Another tactic is compartmentalisation: e.g. 'Oh, that's my Asperger's', 'That's the French side of me', etc. I've used this tactic in so many ways: embedded attitudes, beliefs, and response patterns, though perfectly susceptible to analysis and systematic (albeit slow) change, are attributed to [insert diagnosis], as though they reside in a separate closed-loop system within the brain.
The most remarkable tactic is to blame a character defect for itself, as though it's a barking dog or subsidence: something notionally within my ambit but beyond my direct control. 'That's my perfectionism', 'That's my people-pleasing', 'That's my disorganisation'. Whilst you're now looking at the character defect, you're not looking at me. I get off scot-free.
A further tactic is to use language to shift responsibility:
- A bad atmosphere
- A toxic environment
- A tense phone call
- An emotional meeting
Here, I'm projecting what is within me to some diffuse and vague locus outside myself.
I have taken to repeating: I am not a victim of the world I see. Thank ACIM for that! Plus the Big Book line: our troubles are of our own making (page 62).