blame is moot
I work as a therapist. I tell people to blame their parents. When in doubt, blame your parents. Just kidding, okay? But let’s run with this. If you have a choice, blame your mom. I used to blame my mom and dad. Especially my mom. It’s why I became a therapist. But now they’re both dead. Who am I supposed to blame now?
Reminds me of four things.
One of them is a lovely poem called A History of Everything, Including You, by Jenny Hollowell. Taking a cue from the poem, maybe we should just blame “some caveman’s emotionally-unavailable parents.”
A second one is Tony Robbins who demands that if we’re gonna blame, we have to blame consciously. Which means we have to blame not only for the bad, but for the good as well. For example, for the ways in which we grew as a result of whatever stuff we suffered through.
The third is something Hara Estroff-Marano coaches her readers to do, in a column from August 2020 in PsychologyToday. She writes, “Here’s the catch, though. Once you get to adulthood, you’re in charge of yourself. You can finish the job your parents botched and learn how to make friends.”
And finally there’s the quote from John Muir, the environmentalist, who wrote, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
When you see the interconnectedness of everything, even our sense of identity becomes blurred. And blame becomes moot.
David Levingston
Like everyone, I have different sides. Counselor, photographer, writer, cooker of food – both spicy and plain, and seeker of truth and happiness. I have always taken an interest in the unassuming things that pass us by – both heard and seen, both ordinary and not so ordinary. They are all sacred and beautiful in some way.