Stop Blaming Others, Increase Happiness in Life
Let's enhance our happiness in life by adjusting our mindset and reducing the tendency to blame others. The song "Victims of the Circumstance" by my favorite artist, Barclay James Harvest, has a particularly clear lyric: "Those mistakes that you all made in the past, you never seem to see." This line addresses the mistakes of the past.
People often fail to see their own mistakes and tend to blame various factors, sometimes claiming it's because of the "circumstances" that forced them to act in a certain way. This is a convenient excuse that allows us to avoid taking responsibility. When problems arise in an organization, employees often tell themselves that there's not much they can do and blame the system, their bosses, subordinates, or colleagues, without considering that sometimes the problem might lie within themselves.
A book titled The Way of Aikido by George Leonard made me reflect on the concept of being a "victim of circumstance." On page 36, it describes an incident in a large prison in New Jersey where a group of inmates watched the same video showing people walking in various public places in New York City. They were then asked, "If you were still a robber, who would you want to rob from this video?"
The results were quite interesting.
Firstly, the inmates tended to choose similar individuals from the video, including a woman in a red outfit.
Secondly, the people chosen by these inmates did not appear weak or small; rather, it was due to their "walking style."
The author of this book noted that a person's walking demeanor is related to being selected as a "victim" by robbers. Walking without a center and lacking grounding—meaning being aware of every moment of walking or how our feet touch the ground—can make one an easy target for criminals. These situations are ones we can choose to avoid becoming victims.
John Conger, a somatic psychologist, states that living in this world without grounding is very dangerous. Not knowing this, one might think that being robbed is simply bad luck or being in the wrong place at the wrong time, thus becoming a "victim of circumstance."
This research shows that being robbed is not about being a "victim of circumstance" but rather about not knowing how to walk properly in public. Similarly, with other issues, the automatic nature of our behaviors is often the root cause of our problems. Therefore, we should examine ourselves more closely rather than blaming others or our misfortunes.
Scientists, philosophers, and thinkers summarize this concept simply: "We tend to become what we think," but the problem is that "we often do not realize what we are thinking."
Becoming aware of our thoughts is not easy, as our thoughts are numerous and occur too quickly, like a high-speed train that passes by before we even notice.
A simpler method is to "become aware of our bodies."
If we can set a new rule for ourselves that every time we walk, we will "walk with awareness" and not automatically, our walking will transform from mere movement into a conscious effort to be aware of different parts of our body. As we continue to develop this awareness, we will not only be aware of our feet but can expand our awareness further. Gradually, we can use this awareness to adjust our thoughts, meaning instead of believing we are victims and complaining that "bad things always happen to me," we can try to think that "there are always people helping us."
I believe that "things will gradually improve on their own."
Dr. Witan Thanavuth is an independent surgeon, writer, and speaker on mental health and spirituality. His latest work is titled Service Is Meditation.
Information from the MIND UPDATE column in the Chiwajit magazine, issue 447.
