Who's To Blame?

The other day I had cause to be annoyed with my husband.  I drove into the carport, and ran over the canvas that covered the piano.  The canvas is held in place by some bricks on top.  As I drove over the canvas, it went under the tyre, pulled the canvas, and the brick fell onto the car, leaving a rectangular dent.  If he had tucked the canvas under the piano, put the bricks further back or even organised to sell the unwanted piano, this wouldn't have happened.  When he heard the bang, he rushed out, and my first thought was, "This is all your fault!"  Fortunately, I didn't verbalise that.

After I thought about it, it was actually my fault.  I could have tucked the canvas in.  I could have moved the bricks back, I could have sold the piano, but it's me who wasn't ready to part with it yet, even though it's been in the carport for 3 years.  The whole reason the piano is there at all, is because of me.

It's so easy for our first thought to be to blame the other person.  If we can take a moment, we might be able to ask ourselves, "How did I contribute to this?"  It comes down to being able to take responsibility for ourselves, our actions, choices and responses.  We're not always willing to do this.

Often we can catch ourselves having the most stupid arguments.  If it wasn't for our pride, we'd burst out laughing and just stop.  If we

• take a step back, we can see our part
• take responsibility for ourselves
• and choose to let some things go.

It only took me 2 days to see the light and apologise for denting the car.  Lucky for me, Paul said, "Oh well, it's just a hunk of metal anyway. I love you more than the car."