VASICEK: Playing the blame game

July 12, 2008 04:41 pm

— In a “Peanuts” comic strip, Charlie Brown tells Linus, “My grandpa and grandma have been married for 50 years.” Linus says, “They’re lucky, aren’t they?” Charlie Brown replies, “Grandma says it isn’t luck — it’s skill!”
Do our successes come from hard work and discipline, or are we just lucky? Are life’s failures our fault – or should we blame someone else?
In my previous column, I mentioned that the world blames America for all its woes, and Americans blamed the King of England for their dissatisfaction during Revolutionary times. We human beings are convinced that all of our problems can be blamed on someone — anyone but ourselves, it seems.
Such a notion does often ring true. We can suffer because others have ill-will toward us. Lives are lost because of neglect. Think about people who are guilty of drunken driving or smoking in bed -- the type of carelessness that victimizes the innocent. Drug addictions turn honest people into thieves, and they steal from us, even though we have done them no harm. The examples are legion.
Yet, if we are honest, we must admit that we have knowingly made wrong or foolish choices (usually based upon emotion) just to suffer the not-so-pleasant consequences of those choices. True, the frequency and degree of our foolishness varies, but we have all eaten “humble pie” somewhere along life’s roadway.
The habitual thinking pattern that says, “I’ll worry about that later” catches up to us and extracts its painful pound of flesh. Living for the moment means paying for the long term.
The less responsible we feel for our choices, the less guilt we experience when our foolishness comes back to haunt us. When we view those who have succeeded in life as only lucky (not disciplined, not willing to delay gratification, not thinking ahead), we think of ourselves as helpless, for whom can control luck? This victim-attitude can be a direct path to an impoverished future, much like that long chute in the game, “Chutes and Ladders.”
Like success in the board game “Monopoly” or “Risk,” our life’s direction seems (and I use the word “seems” because I do not want to get theological at this point) to be a combination of skill and the roll of the dice. If we play skillfully, we are more likely to win – but still may lose. Nonetheless, without skill, we are almost doomed to lose.
British physician Theodore Dalrymple has written a series of essays published as a book entitled, “Life At the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass.” Although the British underclass differs somewhat from its American counterpart, Dalrymple's essays provoke much thought.
Dalrymple brings his medical bag to prison on a weekly basis. He has doctored many of Britain’s hardened criminals.
One criminal he visited had been imprisoned over a dozen times. His last crime had been stabbing another person to death. The prisoner stated, “... it’s just my luck to be here on this charge.” As he went on to describe the grueling crime, he stated “the knife went in.” Three other criminals were imprisoned for similar stabbings, and they all used that same expression, “the knife went in.” None of the three said, “I stabbed him.” It was as though the knife had a will of its own and they were merely bystanders.
Taking personal responsibility for ones actions is not in vogue, and this trend seems more pronounced with the criminal underclass. Authorities have convinced many of us that we are so programmed by our genes, so directed by our upbringing, and such victims to our environment that we are merely passive spectators watching as the drama of life is projected around us. Like robots, we simply do what we are programmed to do. No choice is involved.
Taking the “victim mentality” toward life is a tough row to hoe. True, sometimes the dice do indeed roll the wrong way (and sometimes this does happen more to some than others), but pro-active responsibility increases our odds of winning at the game of life.
Ed Vasicek is pastor of Highland Park Church and a weekly contributor to the Kokomo Tribune.