THE REASONING FOR "NO-BLAME", NO-CRITICISM
AN ESSENTIAL COMPONENT OF AN EFFECTIVE HUMAN BEING


CONTENTS

Essential, crucial, and vital
Which of these ideas do you "buy"?
Arguments against no blame
The workable way of thinking
You'll also eliminate all resentment and regrets
_________________________________________________________


ESSENTIAL, CRUCIAL, AND VITAL

Learning No Blame is an essential, crucial, vital part of one having excellent self-esteem AND in creating relationships that work magnificently.  Without this, you cannot have an excellent relationship, with others or yourself!  Without this, relationships and your personal life will contain unnecessary negatives.  Blame is the opposite of love.

Learn, understand, and know this tautological truth in life:  There is no basis for blame.  The other mathematical derivative, that is often hard to accept is:  That there is no basis for blame no matter how big the "sin", since there is 0 blame that is justifiable, a 1000 times zero still equals 0.


WHICH OF THESE IDEAS DO YOU "BUY"?

(Checkmark which ones you believe to be true.  If you skip by one, go back after you’ve gotten the whole perspective and reconsider.  It will be helpful to have a perspective by reading Sections I and II of The Underlying Basics of Life. )

Check this statement out and see if it is true:

___ “We all do the best we can at the time given the current limits of our awareness.”

___ Therefore, the problem is never the person.

___ Instead, the problem is the lack of awareness (for if a person knew better the
      person would have done better!).

___ The solution, therefore, lies in increasing the awareness sufficiently to have one
      do what works to get the desired result.

___ Accordingly, any one person has to assess the tradeoffs of the potential
      increase in awareness, its effects, and the likelihood of the effects as
      compared to the cost of the effort involved, whether it’s for oneself or the
      other person one is involved with.


Of course, since there are a number of uncontrollable factors involved in what happens, no matter your level of awareness you may still have an undesired effect.  So, being aware enough merely increases the odds dramatically in your favor.  You need to increase your awareness sufficiently to accept undesirable effects, since some must inevitably happen.

But the key element we want to address in this piece is the concept of blame, in the sense that you are holding yourself, or another. “at fault”.

Would a child be held “at fault” for not knowing how to play the piano?
                                                                                ___ Yes; ___ No 

Would a child be held “at fault” for not yet knowing it is not nice to tease someone?
                                                                                 ___ Yes; ___ No 

If anyone does not know a particular thing, should they be faulted for that?
                                                                                 ___ Yes; ___ No 

If you do not know a particular thing, should you fault yourself for that?
                          ___ Yes; ___ No

So, is making anyone wrong for not knowing something ever justified?
                          ___ Yes; ___ No 


The answer to every one of these is an unequivocal no! 

It is just physics: 

    Not knowing enough = insufficient knowledge to do something better
    Not knowing better = the inability to do better
    One cannot do better than one knows how.  It is impossible.

One simply knows what one has learned so far; he/she can not know more. 


THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST "NO BLAME" 

“Well, I told the person that (“fact”, information, etc.), so they know it and should’ve done it.”  Maybe the person actually heard what you said and learned it, but the person’s beliefs were such that they got in the way of doing it.  The person was not aware of a belief that would have worked to make it happen the “right way.”  Again, it was the lack of awareness, in this case, of some other necessary factors in making it happen the way it “should” have.  (For further clarification and understanding, read
Intelligent Awareness.)
 
“The other person knows the difference between right and wrong and shouldn’t have done that.”  The person either believed something else, probably something that created an inappropriate emotion and/or inappropriate thinking, that caused him to do it, or the person has inadequate awareness to implement what was necessary to overcome doing the wrong thing.  (Right and wrong are only “made ups” and aren’t real [not existing in the physical world and therefore create only in the mind].  If right and wrong is different in different societies, then somebody must be making them up, since they are not absolute, fixed truths.")

Everybody, and I mean everybody, tries to do what he thinks will better his situation and if he knew better he would do better!

There is no valid argument against the “no blame” assertion.

(Even Jesus ascribed to this:  "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
And then there was a crucial distinction in the advice to "love the sinner, hate the sin.")              


THE WORKABLE WAY OF THINKING

The only thing to think when you (or another) make a mistake is “what else do I need to learn to be able to have this turn out right?”   In this case, we are not adding needless blame, nor making up "fault" - it is, instead, a matter of just "not knowing yet".  (This is from the works of L.S. Barksdale, which I recommend highly in order to be perfectly clear on this and to not be stuck in the criticism of oneself and of others.  I purchased his copyrights and that materials are available free of charge on BarksdaleAboutLife.Com.)

Now Memorize This So You Can Use It:

“We all do the best we can at the time given the current limits of our awareness.  The problem is the lack of awareness and no blame is ever appropriate.”

___ I can see how this is absolutely true, like a mathematical or physics formula.
___ I commit to memorizing this and utilizing it in my life.
     ___ I now take a solid stand not to judge myself or any other person, as I see that
            it has no benefits and mostly does harm.


YOU'LL ALSO ELIMINATE ALL RESENTMENTS AND REGRETS

If one does not blame anyone in the first place, one will not have a need to forgive - and there will be no resentment.

Definition of resentment:  The feeling of displeasure or indignation at something regarded as an injury or insult, or against who is seen as the author or source of it.
(From Resentment - The Relationship Killer.)

Learn the "no-blame" concept thoroughly and you'll be freed from resentment (which is the equivalent of "taking poison and hoping the other person will die", which is from a childhood belief, as discussed in the resentment piece above).

Definition of regret:  A troubling feeling or remorse over something that has happened, esp. over something that one has done or left undone; to feel sorry about or mourn for a person or thing gone, lost, etc. something that has happened, and/or one's own acts. 

Regret can also be a dysfunctional way of trying to keep something on one's mind in the mistaken belief that one has to do penance for it, over and over and over...  It is also based on an "I should have done...", which is a failure to realize what "enough" is and/or setting up unrealistic standards that create the unhappiness gap.

Once one sees that things could not have turned out better, given one's limited awareness and/or the reality of life, there is no need to mourn or feel bad about what is missing or was not as one wished.  Once one understand the "no fault, no blame" thinking, regret disappears from one's life.  (There is also another viewpoint and awareness that applies to this, discussed in Acceptance - Of Reality And All Of Life.)

Without blame, resentment, remorse, and regret, life is freed up from much needless negativity, so one can live into all the opportunity and wonderfulness of life.


                     _________________________________________

OPTIONAL, BUT IT COULD BE NECESSARY TO "KNOW" THIS:

The following is a bit hard to cover without approaching a level that may seem like overkill, but I want to do my best to have you understand this - and if you do, your life will be changed for the better forever - hugely better, for you will have dropped the main item of ignorance that causes one to choose a path of creating undue suffering, a path which most human unwittingly choose.


THE ISSUE OF "I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER"

With regard to yourself or others, we make the ignorant claim that I or they should've known better (than they actually know).  And based on that ignorant claim, we make the other person or ourselves "wrong" for not knowing more. 

However, we cannot be expected to know more than we know in two ways:

1.  At a given point in time we cannot possibly know more than we know - so that should not be a point of contention or displeasure.

2.  We cannot accumulate more than we accumulated, as what we accumulated could not have been better, given what has occurred in our lives.

This second point takes some real thinking, so please follow this carefully.

My whole past consists of points in time.  At each of those points in time, I had a particular amount of awareness.  Since my awareness determines my choices and what I do, I make choices at the level of my awareness at any one point in time.

I have circumstances in my life that occur and I have people that influence my awareness.  Those things and those people just happen to me and are not in my control until I learn better, so up to that point, some early age, I am the automatic product of what has occurred - this means I am not at choice about it.  I am determined by it. 

If I am not taught to try to learn better, then I will not be likely to learn better.  I am not at fault for that.

If I reach a particular level of awareness at any particular time, my choices will be made according to that awareness and not some theoretical higher awareness that would have allowed me to make a better choice. 

If person A has learned that it is good to go to college, then person A goes to college and acquires, say, 1,000 bits of knowledge.

If person B has not learned (due to environmental factors and who they receive inputs from) that it is good to go to college, then Person B does not go to college, but instead does something else that gives him 200 bits of knowledge.

Should person B have known more bits than he knows?  How could that be possible? [It is not possible.] Is he at fault for not making a choice (to go to college) he did not know to make?  Is he at fault for not knowing more than he knows? 

If person B then says something stupid or rude, because he does not know better, should person A then hold him her at fault for that?  (In other words, make B "wrong".)  What person B said might not be good, and perhaps would best be corrected, but person B is not "wrong" for having done no better than he knew how.

Your accumulated awareness and the accumulated awareness of each person on the planet is determined by the choices they made, which was determined by the awareness the person had at the point of choice.  Your path nor their path could have been otherwise - they are inevitable. 

We are at no fault for the accumulated awareness we have.  We can do no better than our accumulated awareness at the time will allow us to do.  Therefore, we are not at fault for doing no better than our awareness allows.  Therefore, there is nothing to criticize or blame for not knowing. 

What occurs is simply what occurs and no one is "wrong" for doing a "wrong" action, for they knew no better (had insufficient knowing to do better).  Resisting what occurs is a foolish (unaware) move, as it has already occurred and no amount of resistance will help.  We simply must accept what occurred as having occurred, with no "shoulds", and then decide what is our best action given that that has occurred.

If we don't accept and then simply ask what is best to do next, then we will simply make ourselves and/or others suffer for no useful purpose.  The results will be poor.
If we don't accept and then simply ask what is best to do next, then we are ignorant in that regard and it will serve us to acquire the knowledge and understanding to accept and ask a productive question.  Then we can live a life where we make better choices because we are free of resistance, criticism, and blame. 

See Acceptance Of Reality And All Of Life - A Profound Viewpoint, a piece which is consistent with the urgings of the wisemen through the ages and in all great disciplines.  It is kept on this site under the section called Power In Life.