Image from !anaughty!

Yes. Goat Herding. Well, not in the traditional sense anyway. “Scapegoating” is more like it. Why is it that the majority of us can’t own up to our faults? Instead of accepting responsibility, we pawn it off to some poor unassuming soul who tries his or her best to shake it off. Why do we do this to other people? Why is it okay to do something presumably wrong, as long as we don’t get caught? It doesn’t make any sense. The perception society has of itself seems to be slightly askew. There seems to be a general conviction with us where we think that (publicly anyway) everyone should be good, upstanding citizens who never cheat or steal or say/think awful things. We hear things in the news and still pretend to be shocked by them when in truth, we salivate over those “shocking” stories. We can’t get enough of them. It almost exists like an addiction. We’ve become bored with the stories of the 90 year-old man who be-friended and sheltered the cute homeless dog whom, together, have given one another a reason to live.

We drool over “Reality” TV like starved wolves. This is one of the reasons why (for the most part) I’ve stopped watching television alltogether. It dumbs us down. With the exception of a select few channels or programs, television really doesn’t provide anything with much intelligence or substance at all. We are flooded with shows where people are rewarded for weight loss; singletons who fight for the love of someone they don’t know, people who have far too many children, etc. Why do we watch this crap? Who cares if Dr. So and So finds the “love” of his life (and how is it love if it’s exploited on national television? (Isn’t it all really just about not being dumped in front of the world?). I couldn’t care less about the couple with far too many children and what the stresses of their daily lives entail.  Maybe if they invested in condoms, their stresses wouldn’t be so astronomical. Just because you have children doesn’t mean you are interesting.  But people watch because it makes them feel better about their lives. It makes us think, “Well, as stressed out and crazy as my life  may sometimes seem, it’s not that bad” or “I’m not that fat” or “I’m not that desperately single”.

All these shows have one thing (probably more than one thing!) in common: whenever something goes awry, they blame someone else. It’s never their fault. And I would have to say (that) that is the only reality about them.

I read an article telling of a woman who “fell” into prostitution and decided to jump on the “I’m going to blame Craigslist” bandwagon. The article made her out to be some pre-angelic housewife who attended a school of massage therapy and upon graduation, put an add on Craigslist. To her “surprise” many of the ad responses were of a sexual nature and upon discovery of this, not only did she willingly participate in the Happy Ending, but continued to return to service these men so desperately in need of sexual healing.

The woman blamed Craigslist for the entire thing. She stated that if it weren’t for the advent of the advertising site, she never would have fallen into the life of wreckless prostitution to which she had become accustomed. Apparently she was married and had a couple of kids and lived in a neighborhood in some suburban town of Main St. USA. She was fine with what she was doing until she got caught and in every effort to “save face” – in a desperate attempt to avoid being shamed by everyone she knew, she blamed the vehicle where she did her advertising.

Obviously there was always some deep-seeded desire within her – perhaps some grandiose fantasy of escaping the mommy-homemaker lifestyle and being the source of erotic desire of strange and many men. I’ll tell you right now – I’ve been on Craigslist many, many times and never once has it lured me into some cavernous dungeon of eroticism and prostitution. And if it had, it would solely be because of my own secret desires and nothing else.

Just own up to your imperfections and that in of itself will bring you respect. It takes balls to admit that you make mistakes and that you’re a little screwed up. Blaming other people just says that you’re still not ready to accept who YOU are.

Sometimes it can be embarrassing to fully realize who you can sometimes be, but it is much better to admit and take responsibility for it then to pass it off as someone else’s wrongdoing. For some reason we think that if others really know what we’re capable of they won’t love or like or want to be around us anymore. In some cases that might be true, but in some cases, if others care enough about you, they’ll stick around. Forgiveness and acceptance are powerful tools that can only be gifted and if you have people in your life who are strong enough to give you that gift, then you are luckier that you thought.