No correcting If there's no problem

    It would appear to me, I was doing fine; then someone or something would come along and upset the applecart. ‘They’ acted someway I did not expect; they were the source of my problem.

My initial reaction to problems had been to see them as taking place outside me; they were caused by others. This view placed me in the familiar role of victim—justifying any retribution I saw fit to express. I could then be self-righteously rude and feel good about it. This perspective gave me no insight into my part in the play. It was about as useful as looking for dropped keys at night, underneath a streetlight, when they have fallen in the dark of the grass.

I needed to look at whether the result I produced was the one I wanted. Perhaps I had just one-upped them, hurt their feelings, maybe I had been flip. Was that the result I wanted? Not any more, was my answer more often than not as I did more and more work in these areas. I had been defending myself for so many years it felt vulnerable to admit the problem. I was addicted to the comfort of familiarity—whether it produced the result I wanted or not.

The value I have found in looking for what is and isn’t working in my life is immense. Only when I could see how my attitudes connected to my behavior and my behaviors, connected to my results, did I see the value in acknowledging what wasn’t working.

When the default setting is blame (myself or the other) attention is hijacked from the solution. From one angle we are problem solving beings when we are not in the midst of proving whose right and whose wrong. You cannot fix what you do not see.