Thursday, January 11, 2007

Blame Game

When we're young, we are taught early on that there are consequences to our wrong doings. As we grow older, life re-emphasizes that point to us again. Our minds end up being programmed to understand that wrong doing = negative outcome.

I think that's partly to blame for why we always have to find a reason for everything. Even death!

I was just talking to a friend of mine whose grandmother passed away this week. She wasn't sick, nothing was wrong.. it was sudden. Somehow, my friend and her mom have found a million reasons why they blame themselves for the grandmother's death!

Why the guilt? It's God's will. But then it made sense. There was no illness to blame for the death.. no accident to blame the driver of the car.. which leaves negligence and our own actions as the main targets for the blame! After all, negative outcome = wrong doing! :/

26 comments:

Missy said...

SHOTGUN!!! :D

Missy said...

umm your friend and her mom cant blame themselves for death.. :)

Missy said...

SHOTGUNNNNN :Ppp

MSB said...

missy: ;) congrats on the SG

i know they shouldn't, but they still do .. elly 'i should've spent more time with her' wily 'i should've taken her to the hospital sooner'.. etc... hathee el meshkila.. people will always find a reason to blame themselves because they need to put the blame on something or someone. Allah E9aberhum..

LuLu said...

It's so true.. we grew up believing something is always to blame. It's almost a source of comfort to find a fall-out blame person for any disaster.. even if this person is ourselves.

Dakhtour said...

Sorry for ur friend's loss

About the last comment... I had 2 new posts not only one :P

Delicately Realistic said...

I know :/
I think my parents did their best to make me a 'good' person and ended up giving me the guiltiest concience ever!
I lose sleep when i know ive done something wrong!

Dr.Lost said...

i hate blame.. not cool :(

but you can never blame somneone for someone else's death, less they killed them!

MSB said...

lulu: i wonder if there's a way we can bring up our kids in the future to not feel the need to point blame at something?

zizo: :P

DR: tell me about it... they meant to teach us that there r consequences to actions not realizing that there was a side effect to that teaching! :/ (inty shemga3dech min 9uba7t Allah khair? don't you know it's Friday??)

doc: yeah.. blame doesn't make whatever happened go away! and as for death, it's hard enough to deal with.. it's almost impossible to not feel some sort of guilt for something you feel you should've done/shouldn't have done.. although you realize that wouldn't have changed the fact.. you still feel guilty! :/

Sever said...

Agree.

I'm that one who always need a reason for death.
But you know from my expierence Muslims more often say that "there is no reason, he just dead".
Here it can't be so... in Russia always reasons... even if a man is 89... they will tell "he dead because of that & that".
Sometimes it sounds ironic.

But really there are 2 positions... one of them is "racio" (lat.) When you need everything to be explaied from the position of the mind.
But it can't be, it can't be... Life is irrational.
Unfortunately of fortunately? :)

Aurous said...

In my opinion, there is a reason for everything in life (almost, because there are always miracles); and I also think that shifting the blame is very different than shifting the blame.

for example, when somone dies of old age then it is the reason of his/her death, there is noone to blame for it.

Aurous said...

correction: shifting the blame is different than giving reason :P
forgive my many typos :)

Ms. Sarah said...

hmmm.. this is the first time i hear this blame thing... i know everything happens for a reason, but i never heard about the blame thing.. interesting :D

MSB said...

sever: we're all going to die... sometimes, there's no reason other than 'it was our time to go!'

aurous: i definitely agree with the 'there's a reason for everything' bit..

swair: really? consider yourself lucky!!

Anonymous said...

It's GOD's will...with death we should oppose his will too and blame ourselves...that's nonsense!

Anonymous said...

Yeah death is hard to deal with or explain.. that’s why I always found the idea of reincarnation fascinating.. no one really dies..

You see the Brits made it easy to answer any question and gave the simplest reason for any misfit..

they just blame everything on the weather..

;P

Anonymous said...

I did the math. Couldn't agree more.

Anonymous said...

they might be shocked because her death was unexpected and sudden. I hope they find comfort and peace of mind soon.

MSB said...

maze: yeah but during times of loss, people's emotions take over.. and it's hard to understand something unless they can find a reason for it. and saying it's God's will, unfortunately, is not good enough for some people.. even though they know it's true. but emotions require them to look for a source of blame to make themselves feel better.

diigmaa: hmm... reincarnation huh? well, i would love to come back as a fly to annoy people ;)

blaming it on the weather is a good idea though! those Brits are smart.. must be all that tea!

cece: thanks

cixousianpanic: that's exactly it. although, if we look at it from a different angle, it's better for the grandmother to go suddenly, as opposed to her being sick and suffering for a while.

Joud said...

it's the human need for closure. u feel the need to know what happened so that maybe u can avoid it next time, or at least know how to deal with it.

MSB said...

joud: very true. we need to understand it. for us to understand, we need a reason or a cause.

Um Naief said...

hmmm... i disagree w/ blaming but a lot of ppl do it here. a few wks back my BIL was having trouble w/ various things in his life (car problems, probs w/ his business, etc.), so instead of seeing that he was at fault or that things happen, they blamed it on an old car that he had bought, saying that none of these problems happened until he got that car and that it must be a bad omen or something, altho they used other words. soon after, my BIL got rid of that car! i think it's a very superstitious way of believing and something i totally disagree with.... but... i come from it differently and wasn't raised here on in this culture.

MSB said...

tooners: i know exactly what you mean.. i was raised in this culture but i disagree with that way of looking at things.. the whole 'must be a bad omen' bit..

while there are times where i wonder 'why??', most of the time i end up shrugging it off thinking that God must have a reason. (unless it was obviously my fault, then i just suck it up, learn my lesson & move on... or so i think!) ;)

..G.. said...

I've always believed that everything happens for a reason, whether good or bad.. I learn from it, absorb what ever I can percieve til my mind is dry and make the best of it. Even with a clear precise concious, people make misktakes and bad judgements, guess thats why they call them "human errors" eh!

once again, you've aced a great post msb :*

P.s. my condolences to your friends loss, my dads uncle just recently passed away out of the blue so i totally know what you mean.

Hitman1 said...

"If things can go wrong, they will" - Murphy's Law

MSB said...

g: bil thab6t! i agree 100% !! thanks ;)

my condolences to you as well for your dad's uncle's passing.

hitman: aaah murphy.. he's my pal! :)