Sunday Soapbox: Playing the Blame Game

*Steps on soapbox*

I have a pet peeve. I know, I know, I have more than one of them, but this is one of the big ones. I hate it, *hate it*, when any irksome situation becomes an exercise in the blame game.

If there's a big problem, fix it. Knowing how it happened is useful in precluding recurrence and planning future mitigations, but that has nothing to do with the blame game. The blame game is all about making excuses as to why no one is fixing the problem. And sometime's it's even about blaming no one so no one is responsible for fixing the problem. It's away of avoiding addressing the real problem by focusing on trivialities.

They're not working fast enough.

They're pretending it's a panic so they can shove something down our throat.

They're standing in the way.

They're not doing a good enough job.

They didn't ask my opinion.

This is all "___________" fault.

So-and-so dropped the ball.

Well, they do it, too.

They did it first.

Everyone does it.

They could have fixed it decades ago.

They didn't give me the right requirements.

We didn't have the budget to do it right.

We did the best we could under the circumstances.

No one could have seen this coming.

Everyone knew the risks.

The thing about every one of those phrases, none of them do thing one to fix the problem.

People who make a difference, who bring fix problems, who make the world better, they're focused on what needs to be done, not on who has or hasn't done anything. They're too busy getting it done to worry about who ought to be fixing it. If they have the power, they make it better. If they don't have the power, they work and argue and challenge those that have the power until it gets better. And they never stop working for that, for making it better.

They find solutions and alternatives and make attempts. They bring people together and make sacrifices and never stop trying until they have done their best.

Sometimes, it's small things. Finding a solution for a technical problem, helping someone in need, identifying an issue that hasn't been noticed before or an implication associated with it, finding a way to do what seemed impossible.

Sometimes, it's a big thing. Changing the oppressed into the empowered. Tranforming a culture. Finding a path for one's people through the darkness. Changing our perception of the world. Changing our perception of what we can accomplish.

Sometimes, they fail. But they try.

And trying is better than the blame game, every time.

*Steps off soapbox*

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