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Oh, one of my favorites is when people don't get good grades and then dog those who do by saying stuff like, "But at least I'm well-rounded." Yeah. That's it.
Actually if there are just a couple of fraternities / sororities which are the "elite" or whatever, and most people are in all the others, then you will be more popular because you were NOT selected to be one of the "elite".
In my book, that is a success!
Same thing with always winning at games or whatever. No one likes the winner.
Just to piggyback on the "it wasn't my fault theme". It's common for folks to ascribe personal shortcomings to circumstances beyond their control.
it helps to be able to offer up someone whose fault it is, preferably while they're not within earshot so that you can make good on your escape while they go to investigate the new suspect
I've delt with many people who are failures in life and they all have one thing in common, they always blame others.I remember one guy who whenever he got fired,which was often, he would say that 'everyone at the company is a jerk, so I had to quit'.Another has the same job for as long as I have known him and everyone else at the company has been promoted,his answer is that its a large conspiracy against him!!still another wasnt paying attention one time and bumped the stopped car ahead of us, his explanation was that the car he was driving has some weird front end that makes it impossible for him see where the car begins!!!He just wont admit that he wasnt paying attention.the some people hate reality and will say anything to make themselves feel better.
This is a very interesting thread. I am one who never played the blame game. Ironically though, I had a boss who put employees down who weren't in her circle of 'managers'.
I enjoyed working in a support role and challenged myself to produce quality work and have excellent customer service skills. Never once did I consider myself a failure for not being in a management role. Yet this boss gal would look down on anyone who wasn't supposedly in 'her league'.
So, there are those who claim people are losers based on their personal criteria. . . and to me, those types of people are to be considered failures.
I might get crucified for this, but I notice this sort of mental dialogue with tons of women. They lose weight or get back into exercising, and it's all about how great they look, and how healthy they are, and how they're so glad and motivated.
... But when they gain weight, or would rather open up a tub of ice cream and watch netflix than work out, it's all "I love my curves, it's not about weight ..."
This is a funny subject as there are truly two sides to this.
One is the person who blames everyone except themselves. These people have a "victim" mentality, and do not put forth the effort to improve their situation. My Mother was like this - when things got tough, everyone was out to get her (for whatever reason), and she gave up instead of empowering herself.
An interesting link here is that she did suffer from mental illness; I do wonder sometimes how much this "victim" mentality is tied to a mental state that deviates somewhat from what is healthy.
The second one is people who genuinely have hard luck. Like the lucky SOB who happens to meet the right person at the right time, or lucks into the right business relationship, there are people who are genuinely in the wrong place at the wrong time. There is some truth if they justify their failure because of things beyond their control.
This as well has happened to me - a promising career with a company put into full stop because a VP's son was given a job due to nepotism in my department, plugging my career ladder. The reality is, I was screwed due to no fault of my own, and I was fully justified in blaming others for my failure.
Mind you, the difference here is that I left the company, continued to grow my career elsewhere, and am successful by any measure. I didn't give up as a victim....I leveraged my experience from the lesson, and have been very judicious in where I have chosen to work as my career has progressed. Regardless, bad (and good) luck does happen, and people who downplay this choose to ignore the reality of the society we live in.
However, I do dislike the way the OP phrased the original question....not getting into a "popular" frat or sorority, and making the best of the one the individual does get into is a sign of character and perseverance. Instead of being embittered about what didn't happen, these individuals are truly recognising that sometimes things happen for a reason, and are looking for the best in their situation.
I don't see this as justifying failure. I see this as a person who has excellent coping skills for life.
One example that comes to my mind is the fraternity/sorority system when I was in college. There was a definite hierarchy of houses. Everyone knows which are the most popular ones, the ones that everyone wishes they could get an invitation to join. But most everyone has to settle for a lesser house. They justify their failure by saying, "Oh, I fit better in the house I joined because blah blah blah." I don't know if that makes sense to you guys. It's a pattern I notice where people accept a consolation prize in life, then have to justify it by convincing themselves that they didn't really fall short of some standard. Not to get too philosophical, but I see almost every bit of human behavior as motivated by some deep need to prove their evolutionary worth.
Okay, how about this theory.....? Has it occurred to you, that some people really don't give a sh*t about such trivial crap? Has it occurred to you, that what YOU would consider a "consolation prize", is perfectly comfortable, acceptable, AND preferred, to SOME people?
Good grief, if people weren't so judgemental, justifiers wouldn't have to come up with some lame a$$ justification for their beliefs, choices or actions, would they? Okay...I'll step down off the soap box for just a minute...
"Not to get too philosophical, but I see almost every bit of human behavior as motivated by some deep need to prove their evolutionary worth." I don't see it this way at all. What I see, are people who have been made to feel bad, because they're not "just like" someone else. I see people in self-defense mode, who feel as if they need to have someone to blame, because they're not who others want them to be. They can't blame themselves, can they? .....after all, they are just who they are, therefore, there MUST be someone or something else, which can be blamed.
Some people are truly a$$holes and/or are mentally ill (personality disorders?), so I guess there's another set of rules in play there...but just "typical" people?....they're just defending themselves in the manner which has been modeled for them.
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they blame others
