held to account

  I'm tired of the blame being placed on the drugs or alcohol. It's all I hear. The blame lies with the person that choses to use those substances. The cure lies with the same people as well! But all I hear is it is an opioid epidemic. No it isn't, it is an epidemic of people making bad choices. Those that recover being presented as heroes and someone to look up to. Role models for future recovering addicts. We seem to have forgotten one simple premise, you are not supposed to make stupid choices in the first place! You can not create a situation, get yourself into trouble and then become the hero for having "survived!" It doesn't work that way. It certainly isn't something to be proud of. Yet how many of those folks are on television, telling their stories, sometimes relating how they had to struggle several times, to find recovery. The way I was taught you didn't brag about your mistakes! Making mistakes was going to happen, no doubt about that, but those mistakes served a purpose. You were expected to learn and be humbled by those mistakes. The goal wasn't to survive and then brag about it. No, you learned, hope no one else knew about that mistake, and tried to move on in a better direction. 

  It's a theme these days, placing blame somewhere else. I hear guns are shooting people. No, people are shooting people using a gun. The gun itself does nothing, it is, after all an inanimate object. It does nothing without human intervention! And that intervention includes ignorance, stupidity, malice and hate. It is not the fault of the gun, it is the fault of the person using that gun. A woman doesn't want to have a baby and it is the baby that is blamed. The penalty is death! Yes, just kill the baby and that will solve the problem. Of course getting pregnant is 100% preventable, don't need anything to prevent that other than restraint, but the solution is kill the baby. We have entire law firms focused solely on placing blame and profiting from that. The coffee was hot, I slipped on the floor. my feelings were hurt. Place the blame somewhere else is the name of that game. 

  What this country needs is a return to personal accountability. A return to a sense of responsibility for yourself and for those around you. And that doesn't mean handing out charity to those that are irresponsible. A return to, you made your bed, now lie in it! That's the way I was raised. You choose your actions and you are responsible for the results. Make stupid choices, get stupid results. Yeah I am annoyed with all this shifting of the blame. And now the government is mandating an immunization, calling it a vaccine, and refusal to comply can result in the loss of your livelihood. Why? Because you are to blame if someone else gets sick! That's what they are saying. Yes, it's your fault. If you get ill following that immunization though it is just a breakthrough case, no ones fault. The maker of the drug isn't at fault because it didn't work. It works, just not all the time, that's not their fault. 

  Well I got that off my chest and I feel better for it. I'm just so tired of everyone blaming everything on someone else. Tired of hearing I'm a survivor and I recovered. Yeah well be thankful that you survived, you did so by the grace of God, it isn't your accomplishment. If you survived you were lucky to do so, take a lesson from that. Don't expect others to praise your good fortune. Work instead to not do that again. You are no hero! You are not a role model, you are an example. An example of what not to do! You should be humbled and ashamed. Of course I remember when we asked our God for forgiveness, instead of proclaiming our salvation before we have been judged. Same lesson. You are going to make mistakes, learn from them, ask for forgiveness when necessary, and hope no one knows about it. It is all up to you, except for the judgement part, that falls to others. Exercise prudence in what you put before the judge, lest you be judged a fool. Quit blaming everything else for your choices.