Transforming Blame into Responsibility

Have you ever stopped to consider that the world you think you are living in is not actually what is going on? Let me explain. I wrote an email to a potential client the other day asking permission to gatecrash an event they were holding. It was a bold thing to do, but someone I trust had suggested I get in contact with them as they thought I might be able to add some value to the service they were offering in the future. I sent the mail and got on with my life.

A week later and I was looking at my diary to discover that I had this event still pencilled in and another client pushing for the slot. I sent another email to the new client to see whether it was still appropriate for me to go. Nothing.

With the event the following day and close of business fast approaching I managed to dig out a mobile number for the client using some deft googling skills. I wrote an SMS to her explaining my circumstances and hit send.

I then had a flash of panic. I kind of 'Oh my, I think I overstepped the mark' kind of moment. That red faced realisation of a bad etiquette. I had been so indignant about the lack of response that I felt fully justified in pushing for a response. Suddenly my justification went off on one. This client of mine had absolutely no right to ignore me. I had taken the time to be interested in the project after all. Of course I'm going to use her mobile number if it's urgent. She shouldn't have published them online...

The thoughts went on for a full five minutes until I received a short response asking me to get in touch with someone else who would be dealing with the event. Calming down I used the contact details she gave me to leave a message and the following day was given the all clear to attend. 'Too right and about time too,' I thought.

Once I was there I discovered the truth about why I was 'ignored.' It turns out the woman I tried to get in touch with had gone down with swine 'flu and had been off work for a couple of weeks. It seems she had made some real effort after all to accommodate me by digging out the details of an alternative contact. The drama I had come up with in my head was a complete delusion.

How easy it is to spiral dramas out of control the moment we get hold of the wrong end of the stick. We all have different ways of dealing with stress, but often in life, when taking responsibility for our mistakes may mean taking a whole heap of blame from others, the thought of taking a moment and stepping out of the drama seems a million miles away from where we are.

I learned something from a Tibetan monk once. I like the Tibetans. They make me smile for no reason. This monk suggested I 'Drive all blames into one.' When I asked him what on earth that means he explained to me that to blame others is just a way to place yourself above other people in your own mind. It is a dream. It doesn't really happen. We just end up all trying to put each other down to make ourselves seem important. He suggested that by taking blame for everything on yourself, (which is quite easy to deal with if you do it sincerely), frees you up to focus instead on looking for the innocent explanation in what people do. It's how to transform 'blame' into 'responsibility.'

Since I started looking for the innocent explanation, I've found that I get the wrong end of the stick a lot less than I used to. I've found that most of the time, people genuinely aren't trying to shaft me, which came as a small surprise because I'd spent most of my working life trying to protect myself from that. It helped me to find trust in my work relationships. I found that even when I let people down, they still come back to me for business – why? I like to think that it is because I try to take responsibility for mistakes and do my best to rectify them. Whether or not I achieve that I don't know, but I do know that life is a lot less stressful without my dramas stirring it up all the time.

Andrew Tilling