Responsibility v. Common Sense

Between dealing with consumers, a preschooler, a school-aged daughter, and random friends and strangers throughout the day, I've come to one conclusion.

People will find ANYTHING to say, do, or point out to avoid taking responsibility for an action, even if it wasn't a wrong action.

Where does this epidemic come from?

There's the obvious things, a simple example is weight loss. I am overweight. I am working to help this problem. No one else created this problem for me...there were factors, but it really is up to me to have done something about it.

Some of the other people I deal with say the most ridiculous things.

Example: "I ate too much yogurt because I had to eat with a bigger spoon because the smaller ones were all dirty."

Are we serious here people? How many times can you blame inanimate object for actions?

Example: "He was there and I was just spinning. I didn't hit him, my leg did."

Obviously child logic, but same basic principle. If you didn't mean to do it, doesn't change that you did it, and why does the excuses always come before an apology?

I don't know how responsibility has fallen by the wayside. Unfortunate happenings, mistakes, the first instinct is to pawn them off on someone or something else.

I have much more respect for the person who says they're sorry when they say something out of line than the person that justifies why they said something cruel. We all make mistakes, but why justify bad actions?

If you want to eat a full tub of ice cream. Eat it. But it's not your job, your spoon, your rough day, or someone else that made you do it. (Unless someone is force-feeding you--then you have an entirely different problem.)

I want to see people learning from their mistakes, apologizing, coming to middle ground. It seems more and more, the joke about banning spoons because they make you fat is closer to a reality than it is a jest.

I'm dealing with a big mistake right now--although made by someone else, it affects me and I wish I had been smart enough to know in the beginning what I could have done to prevent it. The things we do and how we do them, even when it comes to entering numbers on a spreadsheet, can really affect another individual's life. When someone makes a mistake so severe that it affects my future and my ability to provide for my family, I am mad, but I have to take some responsibility because I didn't prepare for this.

I have to take responsibility for my need to have a better filing system for paperwork, a better understanding of my finances and other aspects so that I can catch the mistakes of others. There's responsibility on multiple sides of situations.

Only problem is, it's very frustrating when someone makes a mistake and tells you that it's your fault they made the mistake. There's a very ethical line there that gets crossed when responsibility is taken and negotiated at a reasonable and justifiable level.

I wonder how different a place the world would be if people were kind, courteous, and took responsibility for  their actions. I don't think any magic wand can give me that one!