Good news: you are often 100% at fault

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Imagine that two cars are speeding toward each other head-to-head in the same lane, the driver of each shouting to the other: “Get out of my way!”

 

The cars crash into each other, killing both drivers and all passengers. Who was at fault? Who could have prevented the crash? The answer is obvious: Either driver could have prevented the crash. Both were 100% responsible for the crash.

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How often are you like one of those drivers?

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We can look at this behavior and think that it’s crazy. Only drunken, daredevil, teenage boys engage in such foolish behavior, right? Wrong! Look closer and you may find similar behavior in your own life. Look closer and you will notice similar behavior in the actions and words of nations.

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Have you ever found yourself in a disagreement or argument with someone?

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Sure, it might be easy to say it was their fault. But here's the twist: it was your fault too—100% your fault. Why? Because it takes two to argue.

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The word "fault" often carries a negative weight. Within a shared framework of fairness, we might judge that they were "at fault" while you were "not at fault."

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However, if we shift our focus to whether you had the ability to adjust your behavior to prevent an undesired outcome, then—setting aside fairness—you were 100% "at fault" for causing that undesired outcome.

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Another example of the good new of being 100% at fault

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Do you ever say (or know someone who says), “My job is so stressful. I just can’t deal with all the pressure!”? For you, it looks like the circumstances (your boss, your colleagues, etc.) are the cause of your stress.

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Yet, it is well documented that how we view and interpret the circumstances of our lives can also be a contributor to our stress. If your interpretation changed, less stress (or even no stress) would be caused. Or if the circumstances changed, no stress would be caused. Each and either is up to 100 percent responsible, just as in the case of the head-to-head drivers.

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Looking for the solution when you're holding it in your hand all along

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Yet, we almost always look outward to find the cause of the feelings or circumstances that we don’t want to have, insisting that what’s out there needs to change. In doing so, we often miss a gold mine of opportunity for discovering how to shift our own responses or behaviors.

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As my maternal grandfather (maybe not knowing he was quoting the 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk Shantideva) would say, “For a man with shoes, the earth is paved with leather.”

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Watch out, world! Here I come!
 

Identify at least three situations in your life where the cause of what you don’t want appears to be external circumstances. See how you might empower yourself by discovering that all you have to do is "put on some shoes."

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See also:

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100% responsible

Fault (cf. Contribution)

Undoing defensiveness