Blame—Yom Kippur Musings
It’s hard to believe it’s not your
fault. No one else thinks it was your fault. Not your family. Not your friends.
Not your colleagues. But you were there at the beginning. You were the adult in
the room when everything devolved into a malevolent, maelstrom of malodorous
manure—a steaming, hot, burning pile of fecal matter.
There must be something you could have
done differently. You obsess over every decision made. You reexamine every step
Where did you give in too quickly? Where did you delay too long? What if you
had . . .?
You close your eyes to sleep at night,
and your thoughts go right back to the replay reel. Depending upon your age you
might even hear Warner Wolf say, “Let’s go to the videotape.” As you try to
relax your mind races through every possible scenario—every decision—every path
not taken. Do you read yourself to sleep to focus your meandering mind away
from disturbing, sleep—blocking thoughts? At some point you must have fallen asleep
because you wake up still reliving every minute and second-guessing everybody
involved. You consulted with all the experts. You listened to wise counsel. You
did your own research, and not just on the internet. You became somewhat
knowledgeable in a wide variety of technology, philosophy, medicine, and
industry best practices.
Of course, so long as you’re trying to
fall asleep and banish these painful self-incriminations, your thoughts
uselessly turn to every mistake you’ve ever made (or thought you made). Cross
words with a classmate in 5th grade. A bullying incident in third
grade—you didn’t even know the word back then. Regret over things said and not
said. Actions taken and not taken. People you have disappointed, people who
have disappointed you. Opportunities you have missed because you
procrastinated. Mistakes you have made even though you knew better. Gross
immaturity in the face of reasonable expectations and responsibilities. The
illness, the accident, the failed project, the narrow escape, career misstep. The
list goes on, but no one remembers any of this except you.
Why?
Why do this to yourself? What is the value
of extended guilt, self-flagellation, and repeated communing with ghosts from
your past? “Nobody goes through life undefeated” (Mike Lupica).
Humans seem to need atonement and
forgiveness. The Catholic Church has confession. Jews have Yom Kippur which
features a stylized group confessional as part of a long day of fasting and
self-deprivation. Twelve-step programs all have steps eight and nine, but even
after you have apologized to everyone who would care, remember, or have the
ability to forgive you, this doesn’t seem to close the books. Why do you have
so much trouble forgiving yourself, counting your blessings, and moving on? If
God can forgive you, surely you can eventually forgive yourself.
It is football dogma that quarterbacks
must nurture a short memory. They must be able to pass the football
effectively, immediately following a devastating interception. This goes for
players in other sports, too, and others such as soldiers and surgeons. The trick
is to retain what can be learned from a mistake without dragging along the
associated negative baggage to distract you from your goals, your life, and
your solid night’s sleep.
Are there good reasons to continue to
blame yourself? Reasons—certainly. Good reasons—only you can decide. For some
people, taking the blame is more comfortable than the idea that ‘shit happens.’
If you’re to blame, you can deceive yourself into thinking that you maintain
some modicum of control over your life. If the natural entropy and randomness
of the universe just happened to take a dump on your doorstep, then the
rollercoaster of your life leaves you no alternative but to just hold on tight.
That’s too scary for many.
Guilt also plays a major role in
political and social progress and activism. Whether the blame causing that
guilt is well placed is a discussion well beyond the scope of these musings.
The solution? Easier said than done, of
course. Instead of wallowing in negative thoughts of your own lifelong
inadequacies, failures, and mistakes. Instead of alternatively being blinded by
your dazzling successes and brilliance. Take a cold, clear, hard look at where
you are today. Determine what your goals are. Plot a course from where you are
to where you want to be and begin working toward the next intermediate step. The
past informs this path only so far as the wisdom you have gathered about what
works and doesn’t work for you. Your motivation is strictly rooted in your
acceptance that you have only one life, and there is no value in dwelling on
the past. Regardless of how you got here, placing credit or blame is
irrelevant. There is no place to go but forward.
On this Yom Kippur, acknowledge
responsibility for your own actions (or inactions), extract what wisdom you can
from past events, apologize and atone as appropriate, and move forward. Grasp
for the wisdom the accept that you are human and imperfect. Believe that God
grants us forgiveness. As the gates close at the end of the Neilah service, have
the grace to accept God’s forgiveness and sincerely forgive yourself as well.
As we learn in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of our
Fathers) 2:21 “He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say:
It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task. Yet you are not free to desist
from it.”
May you be inscribed and
sealed for a good year.
Aaron
2 October 2022
