It’s partly my fault

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
Stanislaw Lec
1909 – 1966

I rarely watch television. But recently, I was having dinner and an investigative news program came on with a truly compelling subject: the home mortgage crisis that precipitated the financial meltdown in the U.S. I wanted to see their take on what had happened, so I watched the program.

They did a fairly good job of covering the problem. In my opinion, they were a little too easy on those legislators who set the stage for the crisis, passing the legislation that made it all possible. But the reporters did a thorough job of identifying and meeting the other parties who contributed to the meltdown. They interviewed purchasers who clearly could not afford the properties they were buying. They interviewed mortgage brokers who processed the loans and underwriters who approved the loans. Finally, they traced the loans to Wall Street, where the debt was packaged into huge pools and sold to large and small investors everywhere.

There was plenty of blame to go around. You couldn’t watch the program without wondering how the borrowers could be so dumb to take out loans they clearly had no means to repay. And why would the underwriters approve loans they knew to be shaky at best? And what about the credit rating agencies that gave top ratings to the packaged loans; were they totally asleep at the wheel?

But here’s the thing I found most startling. Every one of the many participants — from borrowers to lenders, appraisers, underwriters, Wall Street bankers and credit rating agencies — each and every one of them said they were partly at fault, but they were quick to deflect most of the responsibility to others.

The borrowers agreed they were partly to blame, but if the lender said they could qualify for the loan then they felt it was okay. Far too many borrowers said they really didn’t understand what they were getting into; they expected someone else to look after them. The Wall Street bankers did no due diligence; they probably were afraid to ask too many questions. Everyone wanted to benefit from the transaction but no one wanted to take responsibility if something went wrong.

Each party said they were partly at fault, but the majority of the responsibility should be shouldered by others. The fallout is being felt everywhere: massive real estate foreclosures, time-honored Wall Street firms failing, unemployment soaring and no end in sight.

How sad. The lesson here is that when you give up responsibility for your own decisions, you’re asking for trouble. When a sizable portion of the nation gives up their individual responsibility, the nation is headed for disaster.

We’re currently in a disaster because so many people failed to take responsibility for their own actions.

And the tendency to only accept partial responsibility isn’t limited to the current financial mess. This will be a tough question, but ask yourself how many times you’ve hidden behind the partial responsibility excuse. How often do you say, “Sure, it was partly my fault, but ___________.”? This is a very dangerous way to live.

From watching the TV program, it seems that trying to blame others has become an accepted way of life.

We always have a choice. We can take responsibility for our actions, or we can suffer the consequences of failing to take responsibility.

And oftentimes excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault worse by the excuse.
William Shakespeare
1564 – 1616