Why does blaming others always end up backfiring — A Short Story
“I can’t believe it is already our 1-month anniversary” smiled the young blond girl as she looked adoringly at her boyfriend.
“Time flies when we’re having fun” he said with a wink. As he leaned in for a kiss, the girl suddenly felt her phone buzz furiously. Immediately she dragged him under the table and peeked under the table-cloth.
Her boyfriend was shocked. Before he could ask her what was wrong, she turned to him and shrieked, “He’s here! We need to get out of here right now!”
With that, she grabbed his hand and dashed into the restaurant’s kitchen at full speed. Plates were shattered, screams were exchanged, but they managed to make it out through the back doors. As they rounded the corner, the girl’s phone began to buzz wildly again.
On her screen were two new red dots that were heading her way. Once again, she grabbed her boyfriend and shoved him into her car. As they sped off into the night, she zig-zagged furiously through the streets until she was abruptly trapped in a traffic jam on the Golden Gate Bridge. There was construction.
She peered down at her buzzing phone, and then she started to panic. “There is another one of them on this bridge with us! We need to jump!”
She flung open her car door, sprinted over to the edge of the bridge and prepared to jump. Her boyfriend stopped her.
“Who are all these red dots on your phone?” he demanded. “Why are there so many of them in this city?”
She reluctantly confessed that they were all her ex-boyfriends. She blamed each of them for ruining her life. And she had placed trackers on each of them so she can avoid bumping into them. She didn’t want to give them another chance at ruining her life again.
She then said, “Enough talking. We need to jump now!”
But before he let go of her hand, he shouted, “Your ex’s are not ruining your life and relationships. You are!”
She gasped, slapped him across the face, and then jumped over the edge. As she did this, she also discretely slipped a tracker into his blazer pocket.
When we blame people and refuse to take responsibility over our own lives, we inadvertently end up surrender more control of our lives to others than we actually mean to.
