It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault.
If you were to go to a college hockey game in recent years, you were likely to hear the home fans chanting this at the opposing goalie for letting a puck fly by.
In a vacuum, this chant seems infantile. After all, the scoreboard already tells the story.
Why rub salt in the wound? Why make the goalie feel even worse for coming up short?
There is no rational explanation. And yet, the chant has lived on for years.
Some of this has to do with home ice advantage. The chant adds an element of intimidation to the proceedings, making it even more daunting for the visitors to come away victorious.
But a lot of it comes from a human obsession. An obsession in finding someone to blame.
There are few more compelling figures in our society than the scapegoat.
We worship the heroes and abhor the villains. But we depend on the scapegoats.
For these figures provide us a target for our attention. A release valve for our exasperation. A convenient excuse for why things veer off course.
Yes, we need an explanation for each hardship we face. A foil for the moments when our visions of perfection eviscerate into the murkiness of reality.
So, we look for somebody to blame.
This urge to point the finger is so prevalent that it’s practically muscle memory. We instinctively turn toward its seductive glow time and again.
At the moment we find our scapegoat, we feel relief. Our angst, confusion and vulnerability give way to the rush of adrenaline of grabbing the pitchforks and torches.
Of course, nothing on the surface has changed. The circumstances we are facing are just as they were.
But now we have a cause to rally around. A rationale for feelings of renewal.
All while someone else is left to shoulder the burden of our suffering.
There’s a prevalent school of thought. One that equates finding fault with serving karmic justice.
This is a fallacy.
For justice is blind to bias. It does not care about our feelings, or bend to the whims of our desires.
No, true justice is only about one thing: Balance.
Now, some may argue that apportioning blame restores balance. That transferring the burden of responsibility to someone at the origin of our troubles gets the universe back on track.
But reality is rarely this straightforward.
Indeed, the line between accountability and vindictive rage is often perilously narrow. And in the fog of distress, we can easily cross to the wrong side of the divide.
And so, scapegoats find themselves culpable for violations of standards that defy reality. Or wrongly accused altogether.
These are terrifying situations. They are outcomes that we don’t want to find ourselves facing.
And so, we hedge.
We hold back. We play it safe. We do all we can to reduce the risk of blowback.
This defangs us as leaders and innovators. But it also takes the worst case scenario off the table.
Or so we think.
On September 11, 2001, the world changed.
Millions watched in horror as two hijacked airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, and another plane crashed into the Pentagon near Washington.
It was the darkest day of my life — and I’m sure I’m not alone in that fact. But the days that followed weren’t much brighter.
There was an uncomfortable stillness in the air. Anxiety and uncertainty were everywhere you turned.
Then, President Bush announced that America was going after those who brought this evil to our shores. Less than a month after the attacks, the United States Army invaded Afghanistan.
At the time of the invasion, it was hard to find many who were opposed to it. We had all just lived through an attack. If we didn’t go after those who were to blame, we would invite another act of terror.
And yet, two decades later, the results of that decision are less clear cut.
The masterminds of the 9/11 attacks are just about all dead or captured by now. And yet, the war in Afghanistan wears on.
What started as an action of blame has morphed into a costly quagmire. Some of the participants in it today were not even alive when the conflict started.
Pointing the finger took us further than we’d ever hoped to go.
As I write this, we are in a new kind of crisis.
A virus with no cure has killed tens of thousands of people across America. And the mass quarantines meant to contain it have caused 30 million people to lose their jobs.
The pain and strife are catastrophic. And the devastation lies on multiple fronts.
As battle through this uncertainty, we focus our attention on one question. Who’s to blame?
Some have pointed to China, where the virus first erupted. Others have pointed to political leaders, who didn’t act quick enough to contain early cases. Others still have blamed government agencies, who botched the rollout of testing for the virus when it was still in the nascent stages of its spread.
The blame game provides us with a convenient distraction from the despair of the present reality. It provides us with prominent punching bags for us to lob our ire at.
But it is wholly misguided.
For viruses are forces of nature. They do not neatly follow the laws of human governance.
This is why there have been pandemics before. And it’s why there will be pandemics in the future.
Even if everyone we point the finger at had acted optimally, there would still have been carnage. There is no conniving terrorist in a faraway cave that wrought this devastation. Nature itself did.
And so, apportioning blame is a futile exercise. Especially in the midst of the storm.
Crises are painful. But they are powerful teachers.
And one prevailing lesson, proven time and again, that the rush to blame is futile.
Yes, accountability is important. Sometimes, it is even a matter of life and death. But it shouldn’t be our first order of business.
We must start by righting the ship. By mitigating the damage and adjusting to the circumstances. By putting survival first.
Only after the fog has lifted should we concern ourselves with determining the blame. With the crisis in our rearview, we can objectively determine who should foot the bill. Or if anyone should at all.
This truth should be self-evident in times of tribulation. In fact, it should be standard procedure even when we’re not on the brink.
It still can be.
So, let’s make it happen.
Let’s learn from our mistakes. And let’s put the blame game behind us.
There are far better uses of our time and energy. Let’s unlock them.