Kishore C.S. (September 2000)

Of the various lessons I learned my life, I realized that self-pity and wearing the mask of a victim does not help. Many times we fail in doing simple things and we wear the mask of a victim and pretend that failure is not really a failure but circumstances really made it happen and get away with the failure.

This trend has been reinforced and nurtured well in societies which actually makes one’s personality weak instead of helping one to learn from the failures.

Examples:

• When I am poor, I blame my boss for not giving a promotion or the rich for not allowing me to make more money.
• When I am unhappy, I blame someone for causing me unhappiness.
• When I am unsuccessful/score low in an exam, I blame my teacher, my family and all other factors I can think of for the failure.
• When I don’t have enough time for family, I can blame work or my boss for loading me too much with work.

This particular trend has become highly popular by the films we watch everyday. In every movie there is a villain who is hell bent upon doing harm to the hero. Hero is always seeking revenge against the villain. Fortunately in the films the Hero succeeds in taking a revenge.

We tend to believe in this theme and start looking for villains for all our failures and seek to take revenge. In many situations we cannot really point the blame on others. In one of the books I was reading, it was pointed that from childhood this idea is impressed on us. When we fall down and get hurt it is the fault with the floor and not ours. I realized that this idea is so much true in our culture and it cultivates an impression in us that we can always look for factors outside us for the problems we face. Another factor that adds fuel to this ‘self-pity’ is making assumptions. We always make assumptions about how others behave, how situations should be and when events turn different we feel like victims of others emotions/behavior. I have personally experienced my tendency to do this.

This awareness has made me realize that I always have to take responsibility for my current situation and do everything in my power to change the situation rather than keep blaming someone else.

I wanted to convey a lesson I have learned. Hope I am successful in doing the same.

To get an awareness of the same, do the following:

• In the next movie you are watching identify situations where there is a deliberate attempt to make villains or heroes out of people.
• Next time you are making an excuse for a problem, think about it. Who is responsible? What assumption made this happen? Who is responsible for this assumption?

Doing something like this can really help an individual aware of the instances one tends to wear mask of a victim and move to a pro-active goal setting mode and become more successful in life despite all the failures.