[Ntuitive]

Hello everyone,

I'm not a PhD psychologist or anything. I'm just some guy who wants to share something he found important to himself.

Everyone views things differently. We all know this, but do we actually take the time to question our point of view, and to realize that we have more power to change it than we think?

For a long time I used to put a lot of blame on myself for minor things. In situations where something went wrong, I always thought that maybe there was something I could have done differently. I just worried about things that were kind of beyond my control.

Last summer I roomed with a guy who had a very different perspective on life and situations than I did. I was surprised by all the different ways in which he was able to justify problems without putting himself down. I actually learned a lot from him though, for the better. And it really helped my mentality.

He had a different way of looking at things that freed himself from blame. You probably have seen people do things like this before, but basically instead of blaming himself, he would find the most creative, yet true points of view to blame other factors in the event. It sounds too simple, common, and perhaps like making stupid excuses. It is. But it's worked for me.

I'll provide a really basic example. It might not the best. You may know this story in case I typed it somewhere but here we go.

I walked into a clothing store one day to apply for a job. The music in the store was playing really loud as I walked in. From somewhat of a distance, as I was entering, I asked two employees if they were taking applications. They couldn't hear me at all. I came closer to them and asked again. One girl was actually kind of rude I thought, because right after they heard what I said they accused me of speaking too softly.

Here we go:

At that point I had 2 options.
1. I could blame myself for not realizing the music was loud enough and that I should have spoken louder, perhaps even putting myself down for having a soft voice in the first place.
2. I could blame the music for being too loud, which in my opinion, it was too loud.

The girl told me that I came in "quiet as a mouse," which I thought was something unnecessary to tell me. I told her option number 2 and said "I'm sorry the music is too loud." to which she responded "That's what I'm saying." in a condescending manner.

At that point I had 2 more options.
1. I could blame myself for putting the blame on the music for being too loud and then getting that kind of reaction from her or,
2. I could simply believe that she's rude. (no one was in the store anyway because they suck)

I decided number 2, and I also decided that they lost a valuable potential employee (ME), because in my opinion I would have been more productive than either one of them.

I took the application but I didn't fill it out. I asked myself "Why the hell am I even applying here? They suck. The store sucks. Forget this."

My way of rationalizing the situation was that:

Had the music not been playing, at least not as loud, they would have definitely been able to hear me. I chose not to blame myself for being too quiet, and instead I chose to blame the volume of the music. And as a bonus, I chose to believe that it was their loss for losing my interest in working there. They are terrible and lame.

The more I've gotten into this frame of mind, the quicker and more creatively I've been able to think of logical reasons not to blame myself for certain occurrences, such as blaming the crack on the side walk for causing me to trip. And if that's a bad excuse, then blame the city for having terrible infrastructural situations going on.

I can't go around blaming everything, or else that would be victimizing myself. I also have to be fair and remember what's real, especially when dealing with others. That's why I practice this in moderation.

Anyway, long post but there you have it. Just wanted to share my thoughts. Anyone can feel free to add their own ideas. Peace.

 

[Luke]

Hahaha! That's awesome, I think you've cracked the code of how your regular, high self esteem individual, thinks. I'm going to give this a try.

First attempt: I should have studied more this week. Wrong. They should have made the work more interesting and given us less of it.

 

[basementbugs]

First attempt: I should have studied more this week. Wrong. They should have made the work more interesting and given us less of it.

Hahaha, nice.

@Ntuitive I like the way you think. It would probably do me some good to try this out...

 

[Marimeli]

Hahaha, in that situation I totally would have said, "actually, I came in just like I went into all the other stores. Perhaps if you turned the music down, you wouldn't be so easily startled by my awesomeness the next time I come in."

 

[Redwood]

Another option: "Who cares if they think something negative? I'm happy anyway."

I've also found that most of what I worry or stress about are things that are either in the future or the past. The current moment has very few worries, so I try to focus on being in the moment.

 

[ethylester]

That's cool. Yeah, I would not have applied for a job there either after that experience. People putting you down before they even know your name? Not cool. No thanks.

Also, instead of blaming anything, you can put it on fate. Sometimes I do that. Just say, "Well, I guess it wasn't meant to be. No big deal."

I remember my dad taught me a great lesson once (well more than once, but this stands out). He is a professional trumpet player. For as long as I can remember, he always enjoyed the music of this one trumpet player, and he even had posters of him in his office. This guy is a world class player, tours the world and whatnot. So my dad gets this once in a lifetime opportunity to play a concert with this guy! I know he was really excited. The way things panned out, though, the week before the big show, my dad was scheduled to play in the orchestra pit of a touring musical that was in town. He had to play something like 10 shows of the same music, all in about a week's time, and it happened to have some difficult sections within the music. So what happened was he overworked his chops and by the time the big show came up with the famous trumpet guy, his lips were all blown out. I was at the concert, I saw him go up there and play a duet and totally botch it. It was very painful to watch. The famous guy totally outdid my dad and it was quite obvious. I felt so sick for my dad, I wanted to puke. And this was in front of a packed concert hall...

Anyway, after the show, I went backstage to meet up with my dad. I looked at him sympathetically. I wasn't going to say "Good job" because he and I both knew he totally messed up. So I just looked at him and smiled. He looked at me without even a look of defeat and said, "I'm ready for a beer." I laughed and said, "Me too." Then he said thoughtfully, "Life goes on," and smiled. It really showed me that shit happens and sometimes it sucks and you can wallow in it or you can say "life goes on" and keep moving forward.

I try to maintain this attitude in my daily life. It can be hard some days, but it keeps you sane and keeps you positive.

 

[basementbugs]

@ethylester Thanks for sharing that story about your dad. I'm going to try to make a point of remembering it when I find myself in crappy situations that aren't going the way I want them to...

 

[kaleidoscope]

@ethylester

Is it weird your story made me tear up?

 

[basementbugs]

@ethylester

Is it weird your story made me tear up?

You're not alone... I just felt kinda silly admitting that.

 

[kaleidoscope]

@basementbugs

I never feel too silly on here. Beauty of this forum.

 

[basementbugs]

@basementbugs

I never feel too silly on here. Beauty of this forum.

I'm learning that too... it's pretty awesome, if I do say so. I think I'm falling in love with this forum -- and the people on it. (In a platonic sort of way of course, haha.)

 

[mimesis]

The more I've gotten into this frame of mind, the quicker and more creatively I've been able to think of logical reasons not to blame myself for certain occurrences, such as blaming the crack on the side walk for causing me to trip. And if that's a bad excuse, then blame the city for having terrible infrastructural situations going on.

I can't go around blaming everything, or else that would be victimizing myself. I also have to be fair and remember what's real, especially when dealing with others. That's why I practice this in moderation.

Anyway, long post but there you have it. Just wanted to share my thoughts. Anyone can feel free to add their own ideas. Peace.

I like your thoughts about this, but you want to judge the situation, who was right and who was wrong. The goal of your visit was to get a job. And you didn't.

I'm like most of us introvert and I can imagine a situation like this might feel a bit awkward. I worked as a waiter in a restaurant, as a bartender in a bar and in a club. Each time I applied, I wasn't sure if I could do it, as each is a step up when it comes to required assertiveness. But I adapted real quick and in that sense I could recommend this to any introvert to overcome timidity and deal with assertive people, in your own (introvert) way. .

The way I see it, nothing happened really. Probably you both were right. She said what she thought, and you didn't say what you were thinking. You can rationalize it as them losing a fine worker, due to their own fault, if that makes you feel better. Even more when you have found another job. If you didn't, you let a chance go by. But you may forgive yourself for that. It's not a big deal.

Next time, focus on your goal and don't let something like this stand in the way. You wouldn't be a good employee if you would pick your customers the same way. Be flexible, be cool and be kind. Once you have got the job you will have a hundred encounters like this in a day. You don't wanna know, LOL!

Good luck!

 

[OrangeAppled]

They also lost a potential customer.... Just because someone is asking for an app doesn't exclude the possibility of them dropping some cash there in the future.

Reframing situations can be good when you take on a perspective that is less personal, at least when your tendency is to make most things personal. However, you don't want to go to the other extreme & never take personality responsibility either.

The poster above brought up keeping your goal in mind, and I think that is important when judging situations. Did you do your best in meeting your goal? If so, great. The rest can amount to circumstances out of your control, and then it's good not to beat yourself up about it.

 

[mimesis]

They also lost a potential customer.... Just because someone is asking for an app doesn't exclude the possibility of them dropping some cash there in the future.

Reframing situations can be good when you take on a perspective that is less personal, at least when your tendency is to make most things personal. However, you don't want to go to the other extreme & never take personality responsibility either.

The poster above brought up keeping your goal in mind, and I think that is important when judging situations. Did you do your best in meeting your goal? If so, great. The rest can amount to circumstances out of your control, and then it's good not to beat yourself up about it.

Sure, if you want to talk about her behavior, she was not kind. But you know, many people have a mask and a protection shield, or can be very defensive. So I like to be so stubborn in being persistent in my respect to the other. Of course you really need to respect the other person, but I tend give people that much credit. And my personal experience is that a lot of people take that opportunity, even bad MFs, and change their attitude. When someone in the bar was almost at the point of going to far, I'd walk to him and told him he could get one more last drink, and after he should leave. They never ordered a last one but left pretty short after. It's a different situation when he wants to order, and then you tell him he can't have any. Then it's much more difficult to tell their reaction.

So translated to this situation, possibly she knew she made a mistake. A defensive attitude often tells insecurity. So I would try and de-escalate the situation. I'm not saying it always works, but this would be my standard reaction. If there is no improvement, I would fill in the form but strongly reconsider. After all, we're going to be coworkers. But I don't have to decide that immediately.

 

[goldentryst]

this is so simple yet effective. it's as easy as just not blaming oneself excessively and accepting the fact that for many things in the world that is just how they are and howw they will stay.

i like it.

 

[Cloudphile]

This is very interesting, I agree so much that we can change our perspective. For me how I do it, I try to frame everything positive.

In the example: I would come out and laugh so hard, because I would think that I'm so stupidly funny xD It doesn't have to be rational, I just laugh, emotions are not rational anyway.

and next time, I will learn from my mistakes.

I am someone who laugh so much, but quiet hahaha xD Yay for Ne for letting me see everything funny

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Hello everyone,

I'm not a PhD psychologist or anything. I'm just some guy who wants to share something he found important to himself.

Everyone views things differently. We all know this, but do we actually take the time to question our point of view, and to realize that we have more power to change it than we think?

For a long time I used to put a lot of blame on myself for minor things. In situations where something went wrong, I always thought that maybe there was something I could have done differently. I just worried about things that were kind of beyond my control.

Last summer I roomed with a guy who had a very different perspective on life and situations than I did. I was surprised by all the different ways in which he was able to justify problems without putting himself down. I actually learned a lot from him though, for the better. And it really helped my mentality.

He had a different way of looking at things that freed himself from blame. You probably have seen people do things like this before, but basically instead of blaming himself, he would find the most creative, yet true points of view to blame other factors in the event. It sounds too simple, common, and perhaps like making stupid excuses. It is. But it's worked for me.

I'll provide a really basic example. It might not the best. You may know this story in case I typed it somewhere but here we go.

I walked into a clothing store one day to apply for a job. The music in the store was playing really loud as I walked in. From somewhat of a distance, as I was entering, I asked two employees if they were taking applications. They couldn't hear me at all. I came closer to them and asked again. One girl was actually kind of rude I thought, because right after they heard what I said they accused me of speaking too softly.

Here we go:

At that point I had 2 options.
1. I could blame myself for not realizing the music was loud enough and that I should have spoken louder, perhaps even putting myself down for having a soft voice in the first place.
2. I could blame the music for being too loud, which in my opinion, it was too loud.

The girl told me that I came in "quiet as a mouse," which I thought was something unnecessary to tell me. I told her option number 2 and said "I'm sorry the music is too loud." to which she responded "That's what I'm saying." in a condescending manner.

At that point I had 2 more options.
1. I could blame myself for putting the blame on the music for being too loud and then getting that kind of reaction from her or,
2. I could simply believe that she's rude. (no one was in the store anyway because they suck)

I decided number 2, and I also decided that they lost a valuable potential employee (ME), because in my opinion I would have been more productive than either one of them.

I took the application but I didn't fill it out. I asked myself "Why the hell am I even applying here? They suck. The store sucks. Forget this."

My way of rationalizing the situation was that:

Had the music not been playing, at least not as loud, they would have definitely been able to hear me. I chose not to blame myself for being too quiet, and instead I chose to blame the volume of the music. And as a bonus, I chose to believe that it was their loss for losing my interest in working there. They are terrible and lame.

The more I've gotten into this frame of mind, the quicker and more creatively I've been able to think of logical reasons not to blame myself for certain occurrences, such as blaming the crack on the side walk for causing me to trip. And if that's a bad excuse, then blame the city for having terrible infrastructural situations going on.

I can't go around blaming everything, or else that would be victimizing myself. I also have to be fair and remember what's real, especially when dealing with others. That's why I practice this in moderation.

Anyway, long post but there you have it. Just wanted to share my thoughts. Anyone can feel free to add their own ideas. Peace.

Interesting perspective. I see what I do in a few ways. I may have the intention to do good, and by that intention, I will act. If I fail to act as well as I intended, I will understand the problems that went into what I could or could not do, and work to improve my situation next time. If I act, it will be from good intentions, but good intentions alone may not be enough. For example, I could want to help a friend all day, but if I never attempt to do so, then there is a gap between what I thought and what I did.

If messing up, I will examine what went wrong, what could have been done better, but to blame myself entirely while not working to improve my conditions is not productive. So, I will only dwell on mistakes long enough to find creative and effective solutions. Just with the previous example of intention without action, if I focus too much on what I did wrong without trying to do better in the moment, then there is a gap. Now, there are times when intending to do something great but failing can still give you the experience, the skills, the resources, the knowledge, to change yourself. People are constantly in the process of being, by what they think and do, so it is not only what one thinks but what one does that determines what happens in the moment. However, it's good to be aware that we are not in control of everything we do, because there are environmental and social influences, but we still have the relative freedom to choose our attitude toward our life.

 

[OreoBlizzard]

Ahhhh, I'm the master at blaming myself for everything. It's going to be really hard to get out of that mindset, but OP, I think you gave us some really great advice and an inspiring (and somewhat funny xD) story to go along with it! Actually, my ESTJ friend told me about 2 weeks ago that I should stop blaming myself for everything and blame everything else. He even made me practice :'D

"Why is your room so messy?!"
"BECAUSE THERE WAS AN EARTHQUAKE AND SCHOOL DOESNT GIVE ME THE TIME TO CLEAN UP."
"Atta girl."

...Okay, yeah. You don't want to overdo it like that. But as someone earlier stated, I think that this is one of the keys to surviving life Stop blaming everything on yourself, because chances are, only 10% of the blame is actually applicable! That's right, me, I'm talking to you! ):<