Blame

Here's a special little insight into my life:  I don't sleep well.  I mean, I'm not good at sleeping.  55 years on the planet, and I still can't seem to get it.  It's not full-on insomnia.  I can sleep, and I sleep deeply, but I just don't sleep very long at a time.  If I turn out the light at 9, I'm awake between 3 and 4.  The alarm is set for 5, but I rarely need it unless I happen to fall back asleep after 30-40 minutes of being awake.  And usually I don't.  

So this morning, I woke up at around 4 and got on my tablet to do today's Wordle.  Facebook was up, so I briefly checked a couple of things before moving over to the NYT site.  No internet.  Weird.  I checked my Wi-Fi, tried to turn it off and back on, but nothing.  No problem, I can play my logic puzzles and see if the internet comes back in a little bit.  

A couple minutes after I noticed the internet was down, I heard the sounds of a big truck outside our house, and workmen talking to each other over the engine.  I look over at my alarm clock and it's off.  There's the problem--no power.  We just went through a huge ice storm in our area and didn't lose power for even one minute, and now we have workmen outside our house who did something to cut our power, 30 minutes before I have to get up to get ready for work.  I go outside to find out what's going on, and the very nice guy on the ground tells me they had to turn it off to fix something across the street, and that it will only be off for a few minutes.  OK, I can live with that.  My frozen feet take me back into the house and I tell Cory what's going on and get back in bed.  

And then I said that I wished they'd let us know that the power was going to be out.  I'll chalk it up to 4 a.m. and no coffee yet, but I was actually blaming this guy (and, by extension, the power company) for my not being able to rely on my alarm clock* going off and the possibility that I may have to take a cold shower in the dark and risk putting my contacts in the wrong eyes and not be able to do all the things I normally do in the morning to get prepared for the day.  And I could even go further and blame him for the possibility of not getting my first cup of coffee at 5:30 and my resulting grouchiness all day and my inability to concentrate on my job and being called on the carpet by my boss.  

As it was, our power was out for about 20 minutes, and when it came back on (along with all our smart lights--ha ha), I reset my alarm clock*, did the Wordle and Connections, and proceeded as normal, with absolutely no delay in my schedule.  But here's the thing.  That guy on the street this morning, and the guy in the cherry picker above, bear absolutely no responsibility for anything that happened in my home or psyche this morning.  They were doing their job, restoring safe and reliable power to people in my neighborhood and beyond, in the dark and the cold of February.  To do that job, they had to momentarily turn off my power, which was a very minor inconvenience, not a real hardship.  It's not their fault I had to reset my alarm clock* this morning because I choose not to get with the 21st century and set an alarm on my phone.  It's not their fault I don't have a generator or battery-powered lights I can use in the bathroom to take a shower when the electricity goes out.  It's not their fault we don't have a gas stove that we could use to make coffee when there's no electricity.  It's not their fault my flashlight is downstairs while I'm upstairs.  

How many times do we blame others for things that are not their responsibility?  Thinking about our recent ice storm, blame is being thrown around like baseballs at Spring Training.  NES should have cut the trees so they wouldn't fall on the power lines.  Homeowners should have kept their own trees trimmed.  The stores should have been better prepared so they wouldn't run out of bread and milk.  For that matter, hoarders should have bought only what they needed so there would be enough for all.  TDOT should have done a better job at salting the roads.  People should learn how to drive on the ice so they don't slam into each other.  And on and on and on.  

A friend from college was asking a question on Facebook yesterday for a class she's teaching.  She wanted to know what people thought are issues that are addressed in schools today.  I looked at what other people were saying, and it was a lot of the usual stuff--school shootings, censorship, gender identity, life skills, etc.  I was trying to come up with something that no one else had thought of yet.  It suddenly hit me--rights and responsibilities.  We talk a lot about rights these days, and I think that's good.  For those whose rights are being stripped away, those who are not seen as humans and therefore not deserving of rights, we need to be talking about rights, and we need to do more than just talk.  But we need to stop talking about the rights of people of privilege and shift the focus to personal responsibility.  Shouting about rights while ignoring responsibility is playing the blame game.  That "DEI hire" took the job I should have gotten.  Never mind that I was less qualified and I should have paid closer attention in my business classes.  Those "illegals"** just need to comply without question so they don't get shot.  Never mind that the ICE agent was acting outside the scope of his job.  NES should have done this and that and this other thing so we didn't have these problems.  Never mind that residents could have had generators and candles and camp stoves and powdered milk, and that they could have hired tree services in the fall.  (Before you come at me for victim-blaming--I know that this was a disaster and that no amount of preparation could have prevented all the problems our residents have faced these last two weeks.)  

I didn't intend for this to get so dark.  I feel like my thoughts are all over the place, and I only have a few minutes left before going to work, so I'll wrap it up.  Think about the times you've blamed someone else for something that's beyond their control, out of their scope of responsibility.  Is there something YOU could have done differently that would, at least, mitigate the negative in the situation?  Is there a metaphorical tree limb that you could have trimmed to prevent a power outage in your little corner of the neighborhood?  Is there one little step you could have taken in advance--left the house earlier so the "idiot drivers" didn't make you late; had a backup blouse at work so you'd have something to change into in case a coworker spilled coffee on you; planned for a small disaster so that a big one didn't completely take you by surprise--so that you wouldn't have felt the need to blame someone else for what happens to you?  

Shoot--I gotta go.  I may have more to say on the subject, and welcome discussion.  Please feel free to respond (kindly), and I may take this further.  Have a great day, all.  Stay safe, and know you are loved.

*Here's an extra special little insight into my life:  I still use a clock radio.  I woke up to WLRW in Champaign every morning from the time I was about 12 until I went to college, and then have changed stations with every move until settling on WNXP in Nashville for the last few years (which I love!!!).  My workhorse of an alarm clock finally gave out a couple years ago and I had to get a new one, which was really hard to find and FAR inferior to the old one, which had an Ewok sticker on it that I had placed there sometime around 1984.  I still miss my Ewok.

**PEOPLE are not illegal.  Ever.  Human beings cannot be illegal.  They may do illegal things, but they themselves are not illegal.