Girl Talk - Part 5 - Soul mates

All have shaped my soul.

In continuing my “Girl Talk” series, let’s talk about soul mates. As you know, I solicited input from women asking them what life advice they received, that they found to be toxic. Some of the women I heard from talked about how toxic the idea of a soul mate had been to them. 

I looked it up in the dictionary  

soul mate

/ˈsōl ˌmāt/

noun

plural noun: soulmates

1.      a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner.

“Ideally suited to one another” sounds pretty non-threatening and non-toxic by definition.  And yet most people have a much more emotionally charged idea of the soul mate.  The soul mate is often thought of as one person out there that is your one true love, your prince charming, “the one god has for you.” 

This idea of a soul mate can be a pretty heavy burden.  It’s a lot of pressure to think that you have this one shot to find the ONE. 

What if you never find them? 

What if you miss your opportunity?

How will you know when it’s “the one?” 

What if you misjudge it and end up with someone who isn’t “the one?”  

One website I read said, “Your soulmate makes you feel entirely whole, healed and intact, like no piece is missing from the puzzle.”   

Wait…. what?????

I went through years of therapy to learn that no person can make me feel whole, healed and intact.  It was my job to become whole and bring that whole person into the relationship.  Two halves don’t make a whole – two wholes make a whole.  

As a girl, I was raised on fairy tales and romance novels.  I bought into the soul-mate myth and when I was sixteen I met him.  Love at first site, intense, passionate.  We could finish one another’s sentences, we could finish each other’s jokes, we knew what the other one was thinking without even having to say anything.   We married young and were completely confident that we were soul-mates.   And maybe we were for that moment in time, as young-love teenagers, and yet we weren’t whole and complete, so the whole thing fell apart.  We expected the other one to fill the void, to fulfill the dream of happily ever after, but that’s not how happily ever after works.  

Happily ever after isn’t about riding off into the sunset with someone who makes you feel whole, healed and intact, it’s about being with someone who takes responsibility for their own wholeness and healing and shares that journey honestly with you.  That journey with someone is messy.  It’s filled with beauty and also with conflict, boredom, and irritation.  It’s mundane.  It’s being OK with the fact that sometimes you can’t stand how much you love them and sometimes you just can’t stand them.  

If your idea of a soul mate is this one magical person who will come into your life, sweep you off your feet and fill your every desire, when the day-in, day-out of life rubs the shine off the relationship, and your every desire is not being fulfilled, you might just start thinking you’re with the wrong person.  You might start believing that you made  a mistake and missed your soul-mate.  You might start looking around thinking that your TRUE soul-mate is out there somewhere.  And you will miss the beauty of the real-life love that’s right in front of you. 

If there are soul-mates, I like the idea that they are simply people that come into our lives and touch our souls in some way. 

Friends, encounters, siblings, children, parents, lovers. 

I’ve had many soul mates.  Some have come into my life and left again.  Some have stayed.  All have changed me in one way or another.  All have shaped my soul. 

“When you meet that person. a person. one of your soulmates. let the connection. the relationship. be what it is. it may be five minutes. five hours. five days. five months. five years. a lifetime. five lifetimes. let it manifest itself the way it is meant to be. it has an organic destiny. this way it stays or if it leaves. you will be softer. from having been loved this authentically. souls come into. return. open. and sweep through your life for a myriad of reason. let them be who. and what they are meant to be."      -Nayyirah Waheed

To comment, click on the title of this post “Girl Talk - Part 5 - Soul mates”

Girl Talk - Part 4 - Pretty is as Pretty does

For men, the way they look is divorced from their behavior.

“Pretty is as Pretty does”

This little piece of advice seems harmless.   My mom used to say this to me to encourage good behavior.  I think it probably worked. What I didn’t realize is that it taught me that being pretty is the goal.  Not being smart, not being funny, not being well educated, or a leader, or someone who makes a difference in the world. 

Being pretty

Being ornamental

Eye Candy

My brothers were never advised “handsome is as handsome does”.   I wonder what that would even mean?   In thinking about what the list of “handsome is as handsome does” might include, it didn’t compute. We don’t have behaviors that equate to a “handsome” in men. We have behaviors that equate to a gentleman, but not a handsome man. For men, the way they look is divorced from their behavior. For women, it comes as a package deal and it’s all about being attractive to others.

“Pretty” actions, in my mother’s definition were things like: gentleness, submissiveness, compliance, quietness and a soft-spoken tone, hospitality, being even-tempered and positive, being accommodating.  It’s not that she ever really defined what she meant by “pretty is as pretty does” in so many words, but she modeled it.

“Ugly is as ugly does” would have been defined as:   Anger, outspokenness, assertiveness, argumentative, loudness, highly opinionated, dominance. 

All of the “ugly” qualities for me were the very qualities that were modeled for my brothers as qualities of a man. My dad modeled strength, volume, strong, authoritative (and often angry) opinions and criticisms, and immovability. He was called a gentleman because he opened doors for ladies, brought home flowers, didn’t burp or fart or swear in front of ladies and was well groomed. It had nothing to do with his being gentle.

An outspoken, assertive and dominant man is a leader. An outspoken, assertive and dominant woman is a bitch. And society tells us a bitch is ugly.

To comment, click on the title of this post: “Girl Talk - Part 4 - Pretty is as Pretty does”

Girl Talk - Part 3 - Paint the Barn Door

It means to put on make-up.

In the FB group where I asked women for the best, most toxic phrases they’ve been given as girl advice, one woman posted that she was taught that woman should be sure to “paint the barn door” before their husbands get home from work. 

Several of us had to ask what that even meant, so she enlightened us.  It means to put on make-up. 

Not only is this supposed to be good advice for women, it’s supposed to be someone’s idea of good “Christian” advice for women. I guess they didn’t read the verse that says that our beauty is not supposed to come from “outward adornment.”

What is the purpose of advice of this type?  It is a message of control.   If we make ourselves as beautiful as we can, we will “keep our man.”  We are in control. 

There are so many versions of this out there.  Some years ago, I was in a women’s bible study, in which the writer of the course said she always makes sure her make up is on and hair is done before her husband leaves in the morning so that the last image he has of her is one of beauty.  This, she stated, would help him resist temptation when he encountered beautiful women “out there” because he would remember he had a beautiful woman at home. 

Is that the kind of society we want to create?!  A world where men are helpless and we hold control over them with our beauty?    Maybe, for some, it is. 

This kind of quest for control comes at a price.  The notion that women are in control of men’s sexual behaviors is one of the issues in rape culture.  A woman is asked, “what were you wearing?” “why were you in that place?” etc… as though she could have controlled the situation with her appearance or behavior.  We cannot expect to put forth messages that perpetuate the myth that women are responsible for men’s sexual behavior, and not expect a backlash in which victims of sexual misconduct are blamed. 

This way of thinking does men such a disservice as well.  Imagine if you were raised with the message that the way another person LOOKED would cause you to either behave well, or badly.  How out of control would you feel?   One woman in the discussion said her husband felt that this type of a message is demeaning to men – and he’s right!  This message of disempowerment is as destructive to men as it is to women. 

Another problem with this type of a message is it makes sexuality about fear and control.  The hidden message is, “I’m afraid my husband will cheat.  I need to do something about it.  I can control his fidelity with my beauty. I need to put on make-up, get a boob-job, diet more, get collagen fillers, botox” ……. and the list never ends because if a little control is good, more is even better.   As long as we operate from this mindset, we can expect that our sex lives will be about fear and control, and not about love and intimacy.   

My first husband was unfaithful.  When we were going through counseling, I tried and tried to figure out what I had done or not done, and what I could do or not do to prevent it.  Maybe if I had been more of this, less of that; prettier, thinner, – something. 

Anything. 

Maybe if I had prayed more or better.  Maybe …… 

And make no mistake, he tried to convince me it was my fault as well. 

I attended a support group at the time and looked around at the array of spouses who had been betrayed;  smart, not-smart, successful, unsuccessful, beautiful, not so beautiful, thin, not thin.  Their stories were as varied as they were.   There was no pattern to it.  It seemed that pretty much anyone could be betrayed for any reason whatsoever or for no reason at all.   My therapist asked me this question, “would there have been anything he could have done or not done that would have caused you to cheat?”  I knew the answer was no and then I knew that there was nothing I could have done or not done that would have kept him faithful.  His behavior belonged to him.  

You would think this would have been a relief and in one way it was, but in another it was not.  As long as I thought there was something I could DO (i.e paint the barn door or something), I had some shred of control.   Once I realized there was nothing I had done or could do, I felt no control whatsoever.   Then, and only then, did I understand the nature of love.  Love is freely given, without trying to control the other person.  You hope the person will love you back, for who you are and not for your paint-job.  You hope they will stay with you as your paint starts to crack and peel, but, sometimes they don’t, and your heart breaks.  

….but, there is someone who will. 

To comment, click on the title of this post: “Girl Talk - Part 3 - Paint the Barn Door”

Girl Talk - Part 2 - Modest is the Hottest

Can we stop telling boys that girls are their gatekeepers?

I put a question out on Facebook to a group I’m a part of asking them for the toxic phrases they heard that were directed at girls.  The first post was this one

“Modest is the hottest”. 

She heard it at church camp.   This is a new one I had never heard.  How had I missed it?  At first, I just laughed out loud.  This is at the same time ridiculous, sad - and completely untrue of course.  

When a girl hears phrases like this, she might think it’s about modesty.  If she’s young, she might believe it and aspire to dressing “modestly”

whatever that is  

But isn’t the message within the modesty message that first and foremost it’s her job to be hot? Desirable? Wantable?  I heard Glennon Doyle speak on the Deconstructionists podcast talking about baggage that resulted from church messages that were given to her.  She said something very powerful about how she was told so frequently that it was so important to BE wanted that she never thought about what SHE wanted.  That is a powerful statement and is just SO true for so many of us.     But in “modest is the hottest”, that is the message.    Be desireable, be want-able.   Be hot.   Oh, and by the way, the path to hotness is modesty so cover UP! 

Second, it’s about competition.  Not only should you aspire to being hot, but you should aspire to being the hottest.  

Third – define modesty.  One of the women on the Facebook group told a story about wearing a T-shirt that when she raised her hand, exposed part of her midriff.  She was told it was immodest.  The next day she put on an over-sized, baggy T-shirt and her breasts were groped by a stranger.  Was the baggy t-shirt modest?  Did it make any difference?   I’ve heard women tell stories about how they were coached not to wear anything that was snug enough to allow anyone to see if their breasts jiggled.   Some say the problem is the length of shorts, which button on the shirt is unbuttoned or not, V-necks, spaghetti straps, tight skirts, short skirts, and holes in jeans.  Modesty is a moving target and a game no one can win.  The logical conclusion to all of this is the burka.   If modest is the hottest, then women in burkas win.  

My husband and I had a laugh last night about “modest is the hottest”.  He pointed out that actually, burkas probably ARE the hottest , those women are probably burning UP in there!   Then this morning, just for a laugh, he brought me this little gem with my breakfast.  

He’s funny and he teaches me to laugh. 

Sometimes you just have to laugh.

Or you’ll cry. 

What is the goal of sayings like this?  

Some would say that teaching girls to dress modestly helps protect them from sexual assault.  But there are no facts to support that what a person wears has any bearing whatsoever on whether or not they are assaulted.  Take my friend in the baggy T-shirt I spoke of above.  According to womanstats.org, Saudi Arabia, has laws that require women to wear a hijab, a head scarf, as well as dress in loose, long garments that do not show the shape of the woman’s body, and yet on the “rape scale” which is a scale from 1-5 (5 being the worst), Saudi Arabia scores a 4.    There is a powerful art exhibit that has been displayed in various cities in recent years around the question, “what were you wearing”.  These are powerful exhibits and are aimed at doing away with victim-blaming and an implication that, maybe, the survivor could’ve prevented their assault if they had worn something less revealing, more modest. 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/powerful-art-exhibit-powerfully-answers-the-question-what-were-you-wearing_us_59baddd2e4b02da0e1405d2a

 Jen Brockman is one of the creators of the installation and director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Education Center at the University of Kansas states, “Most times, this question is not asked from a place of malice. It's asked from a place of fear, by those who love and care about us.  That if they can figure out, what was the item of clothes that somehow left us vulnerable, that all they have to do is avoid that item and they will never be in this place that we are sitting in now. So it comes from that place of fear, but the results of it for survivors can be devastating."

http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/04/26/sexual-assault-art-exhibit-clothing

If you agree that modesty is not a protection against assault, you might be in the camp that feels that girls are somehow responsible for the thought-life of boys.  This gets into the whole “causing your brother to stumble” thing, which I will blog about later.  Can we stop doing this?  Can we stop telling girls that they are responsible for what boys think and feel?  Can we stop telling boys that sexual thoughts and impulses are wrong?  Can we stop telling boys that they have no control over the actions they choose in response to their sexual thoughts and impulses?  Can we stop telling boys that girls are their gatekeepers?  Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where I was responsible for me, and you were responsible for you and we both felt comfortable around one another?  Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where I felt empowered enough to deal with my thoughts and emotions and so did you? 

Wouldn’t that be nice?

To comment, click on the Title of this post “Girl Talk - Part 2 - Modest is the Hottest”

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Girl Talk - Part 1 - Uncle talk

He thought this particular story was funny, I did not

In my blog post “Mottoes – Part 2 – The Cow”, I talked about the motto “no one will buy the cow if the milk is for free” and just how toxic that saying really is.  This was even more in my thoughts because of an encounter I had in a recent conversation with my uncle. This encounter, which I will discuss below, got me thinking about the power of words when it comes to women, our roles, our equality, our respect. I was reflecting on how so many things are said to women and about women that would never be said to or about men.

So this next series is about mottoes that are given only to women, sayings only about women, and advice given to men and women about women.  There is so much that is said to women and about women that is supposed to contain some kind of wisdom, that instead fosters dysfunction in relationships, contributes to rape culture,  demeans  men and women alike and is just generally shitty advice.  Hopefully, these posts will make you angry, and sad, and make you think about the power of words.  

I put out a Facebook post today in a group I’m a part of asking women what mottoes they’ve been given about women or womanhood that were supposed to be sage advice, but were just toxic.  The response was overwhelming.   We have some things to get off our chests!

Sometimes in this series, I will take the motto, and flip it to the masculine, just to show how awful or ridiculous these sayings are.  I stole this device from a brilliant twitter feed that I love; @themanwhohasitall.  The feed is at once comical and horrifying – I highly recommend it. 

I mentioned above that this series arose from a conversation I had with my uncle.  I’ll tell that story here - prepare to feel outraged. 

My uncle is in his late 70’s.  He is what is often affectionately referred to as “a character”, and looks a little like the guy in the picture above.   He likes to tell stories and often his stories are funny and fun to listen to, but this was not one of those times. 

Well, HE thought this particular story was funny, I did not. 

He was telling us a story about his cousin, who is an odd guy, and how he was a late bloomer where girls were concerned.   In telling about how his cousin “discovered girls” in college, my uncle stated, “he finally figured out what girls were for…” 

I wish I could say I came back at him with a sharp and scathing reply.  I didn’t.  I can never seem to think on my feet in moments like this.  One hour later, I thought of many sarcastic and biting things I wish I had interjected:

“OH!  Is THAT what girls are for??!!”

“What?  What do you mean?  What are girls for?” 

“Oh!  I didn’t know that’s what girls were for!  Is that what your daughters are for?!”

“Did you really just say, ‘he figured out what girls were for?’….”

… and so on. 

My husband who also sat there dumbstruck by the comment said later, “you should have seen the look on your face!”  He also said he wished he had thought to say, “Hey Heather, did you know that’s what girls are for!?” 

It was a missed opportunity for both of us.   Maybe next time…..

It  made me think about all the times when women are harassed, exploited, assaulted and demeaned.  So often, people ask, “why didn’t she speak up?”, or like my post in #me too – part 1, “why didn’t she just tell him to fuck off?”   Sometimes you’re just so dumbstruck, so punched-in-the-gut, so taken off guard, that you can’t think of anything to say, so you just stand there silent and angry.  And later, you’re angry at yourself for just standing there.   

Taking it.

To comment, click on the title of this post “Girl Talk - Part 1 - Uncle Talk”

The word "Sin"

This vision is about creating a new world, one where god’s “will” is done on earth as it is in heaven. 

As I’ve written before, words are problematic.  All words are metaphors for something and it’s the disconnect between your “something” and my “something” that causes the problem.   My first husband “loved” me.  He insisted upon it.  The problem was, his definition of what love was differed tremendously from mine.  So he felt unloved by me and I felt unloved by him.  All the while, we both insisted that we loved one another.  Needless to say, it didn’t work out. 

Today I used the word “sin” in a discussion at church.  Almost immediately afterward I wished I hadn’t.  I feel like the word “sin” is pretty universally used to describe actions that are categorized by one religion or another as prohibited or bad.   I don’t believe there is a list or lists somewhere of bad things we are prohibited from doing called “sins”, so I try not to use the word.  I believe that categories of “bad” and “prohibited” are done away with in the teachings of Christ and that grace makes everything permissible.  

In translating the Bible, scholars translated the word   σάρξ (sarx), which means “flesh” to “sinful nature”. 

I like “flesh” better. 

We are flesh – biological creatures and as such, we have biological instincts.  These instincts are not right or wrong per se, they are not “sin,” they are just the instincts that allowed us to survive.  They are just our flesh - our biology. We have the instinct for sex to reproduce, the instinct for competition for resources, the instinct to fight when we are threatened.  These instincts are seen in all living creatures and are part of their biology; their flesh.   The drives of the “flesh” keep us and all living things alive.  That certainly seems OK to me.  It certainly seems permissible. 

And while certainly permissible, we all know that these instincts are often not beneficial.  Competition for resources, the instinct to fight, and the sexual drive can lead to violence, exploitation, war, poverty, and so much more. 

The teachings of Christ ask us to resist our biological nature in many cases in favor of a spiritual nature that goes against the biology of survival.  Turning the other cheek, loving your enemy and allowing oneself to be crucified do not lend themselves to your immediate survival.   They do, however, lead to the evolution of the consciousness of the human race. They move the world toward love and peace, which ultimately lead to survival in an entirely different way.   They lead to a world where resources are protected, shared and nourished rather than fought over.  They lead to a world where the weak are not exploited and power is not the way to lead.  They lead to a world where violence is not met with violence. 

They lead to life that is not just survival, but is truly life and life to the full.   This vision is not about right and wrong, it’s not about sin or purity or any other religious legalism.  This vision is about creating a new world, one where god’s “will” is done on earth as it is in heaven. 

To comment, click on the title of this blog post “The Word Sin”

God as event

“Every moment is a portal through which the Messiah may enter” - Walter Benjamin

Using words like “god” and “church” can be problematic.    You might believe in god or not.  If you do believe in god, words are still difficult.  All words are metaphors for something.  Words become most difficult when we use them to describe something we cannot see.  Love, justice, fairness, equality are all examples of words we have that might mean vastly different things to different people.  When we use words as metaphors to describe the spiritual, we are wading in murky waters. 

As through a glass darkly

The word “god” is fraught.  What you think god is might be vastly different than the believer beside you.   If you do not believe in god, the very use of the word might conjure up ideas that you have decided to reject, and likely should reject.  This problem with the word “god” may at least partly be due to the fact that we start with a concept rather than an experience or a confrontation.   If we start with a concept of God, most will see god as the source of order in the universe.  But perhaps there is a different way of viewing the idea of god.  If we start with the idea of Christ – one who enters the world to disrupt our concepts - we start from an entirely different place.  In one sense, god may be the thing that maintains order, but necessarily god is also the thing that smashes our world apart.  God is the thing that holds things together and also the thing that breaks things open. 

The Hebrew words in Exodus 3:14 for “I AM THAT I AM” are ehyeh asher ehyeh which should more accurately be translated “I will be what I will be” which is also translated as “I shall be there howsoever I shall be there” or  “I will become whatsoever I may become.”  This expression in Exodus 3:14 is an idiom, an expression that has a meaning that cannot be understood by the individual words.  The name is about presence and fluidity.  Not a name that can be pinned down.  An active force.  A becoming.  Not a concept, but a confrontation.  More verb than noun.

So, believer in god or not, there is an ultimate reality behind the universe, an absolute nature of all things, an active becoming that contains both order and chaos.  And whether you define that reality as a personal being such as god, or an impersonal being such as the origin of being or being itself, or some kind of ultimate principal that governs the universe, that’s fine.  The principals are the thing, not the metaphors or words we use to describe them.   

A rose by any other name......

Theology conceptualizes god, revelation is an event. 

Creation is a revelation; a revelation of the ultimate reality of things, a revelation of god, a revelation of what IS.  Creation is also an incarnation.  It is the non-being becoming and evolving into being.  It is the ultimate reality becoming the present reality.  One might say it is god being incarnated from a non-physical thing into a physical thing.  Religion may speak of Jesus as the incarnation of God, but before Jesus, there was the universe.   It was god’s first incarnation, the first incarnation of the principals of ultimate reality.  And reality is being incarnated every moment of every day.

“Every moment is a portal through which the Messiah may enter”  -  Walter Benjamin

To comment click on the Title of this post (“God as Event”) above

Mottoes - Part 5 "To Make a friend...."

“To make a friend, be a friend”

When I was a kid, we moved around a lot. My dad was a football coach. It’s a lot like being an army brat. I moved every year from 8th grade through graduation. The first big move, after 7th grade was awful. I was painfully shy and didn’t have the faintest idea how to make a friend. I hid in bathrooms during lunch at school because I was too shy to figure out how to invite myself to sit at a table with people in the cafeteria. I hid in bathrooms after church because I didn’t know how to make conversation with kids I didn’t know. It was excruciating. My mom’s advice on how to make friends was this motto:

“To make a friend, be a friend”

It didn’t help me navigate lunch in the cafeteria or “fellowship” time after church. I still went that entire year without a single friend.

But actually, it’s pretty good advice overall and it has served me well over the course of a lifetime.

Yay mom.

Fertile soil

happiness is a tyrant

It has been my experience that the most fertile soil of my life was the shit.  The parts of life that I raged against and dreamed of escaping.  The trash, the refuse, the parts I wanted to throw out so I could get back to strength, peace, certainty, happiness and joy. 

I like to garden.  Here's how I "make" fertile soil:

1) compost - which is nothing more than putting all the rotting organic trash in a pile and letting it turn into soil. It does this pretty much without any help from me. The only part I play is knowing what to put in and what not to put in - and what I put in is DEAD material, rotten vegetable matter, leaves and such.  It's a great metaphor for life.  Just toss in your trash, your dead material and the stuff you absolutely can't stomach.  Toss in the trash that life hands you and let it do it's work. 

Voila!  Fertile soil.

2) Manure - aka shit.  On our little hobby farm, we shovel it and add it to the compost pile. Again, we don't really have to do anything, just collect it and shovel it in. Another great metaphor - take all the crap you create, all your filth that you are ashamed of and: 

Voila!  Fertile soil.

I'm not saying anything profound here or anything we all don't already know.  And yet, we are continually fighting and struggling to avoid the shit and get back to the "good" stuff.  We are looking for a way to avoid the darkness and get back to the light.  We are drinking and taking pills, and playing games, and going from one person to the next, and distracting ourselves with countless hours of Netflix in an attempt to avoid the struggle, forget the struggle, drown out the struggle and get back to the ease.   We are obsessed with happiness.  But happiness is a tyrant and a gaping maw that will never be satisfied.   It's so much more peaceful to just shovel the shit and work the soil.   

(to comment, click on the blog title "Fertile soil") 

It's my fault

The thing about blame is it lets us feel in control.

When things in life don’t go as planned – who’s to blame? 

Sometime we blame others and sometimes it’s warranted.  Sometimes we blame others and it’s really not. 

Sometimes we blame ourselves and it’s warranted.   Sometimes it is our fault.  We didn’t show up, we didn’t keep our promise, we didn’t put in the effort that was required. 

And sometimes it’s not our fault, but we blame ourselves anyway.   I’m not good enough, not loveable enough, not hard-working enough, not thin enough, not forceful enough, not gentle enough. 

It’s my fault. 

It’s funny how, even when we’re not to blame, we often still like to make it our fault. 

“If I had just ….”

“If I could only….”

“If I were more….”

“If I were less …….”

The thing about blame is it lets us feel in control.  If it’s my fault, I can fix it, change, control it, prevent it from happening the next time.  If it’s my fault, it’s not random, arbitrary and out of my control. 

I have spent a lot of wasted effort in my life trying to change things about myself or my situation in order to avoid pain.   I say wasted effort because many times I wasn’t to blame and all the gymnastics I did to try to fix the situation amounted to nothing.  At the end of the day, I can’t be anyone other than myself – nor can anyone else.  And that’s no one’s fault – it’s just the truth. 

We don’t like how the world just randomly hands us things – things we don’t want, things we never asked for, things that are painful, things we can’t control.  So whether it’s the fault of another person, whom we can’t control or there is no one and nothing to blame, we find we are out of control. 

We'd rather be at fault. 

(to comment, click on the blog title "It's my fault")