Misplaced Anger--Whose Fault is it Anyway?

Have you ever noticed how people get really angry when they make a mistake? They get mad and defensive that they’ve messed up and often take it out on the first poor slob they see.

This happened to me recently. Someone had spent too much money on car maintenance. The situation did not involve me at all. I didn’t recommend the mechanic. It wasn’t my car. I wasn’t responsible for paying the bill. The whole matter was none of my business. Yet while discussing what happened, the person ended up getting mad all over again and yelling at me.

I didn’t get offended. I knew he was mad at himself—and maybe the mechanic—not me. But it made me wonder why we behave this way when we mess up. Especially when the matter involves losing money or losing face or getting hurt.

I’m a writer so I think about these things. I like to understand why people behave the way they do. If you’re going to tell me a story, I want more than just the Who, What, Where, & How. To me, the most important consideration is the Why.

I guess the most obvious explanation about why people get mad--furious even--at others when they mess up is it’s easier to get angry at the person who saw us fall on our face than it is to blame ourselves for not watching where we were going.

Occurrences of domestic violence often happen when the violator has a bad day at work or some similar experience. Maybe he made a mistake and got yelled at by the boss. He sure can’t yell back so he goes home and takes his frustration out on the weakest target in his path. Most of us can't relate to that situation. But we have seen someone stub a toe on a chair and then kick the chair. Maybe you were the one doing the kicking. I’m sorry to say I’ve kicked plenty of chairs in my day.

Why? Probably the most plain and simple explanation is mistakes make us feel bad. We feel stupid when we make a financial decision that ends up costing us money. We feel clumsy or awkward when we trip over own feet. We feel inferior when we realize we missed a payment and now we’re going to get hit with a thirty-five dollar late fee. The only thing worse than making a mistake is for someone else to witness it. Whether it’s anger or embarrassment at getting caught, no one wants to look bad. So we get mad at the one who caught us rather than laughing it off and realizing everyone messes up sometimes. Everyone looks dumb or clumsy or silly or like a jerk now and then.

That’s life. Years ago, I heard a song or something that basically said: Never the windshield, always the bug.

My last post was about choosing to live a drama-free life. As I wrote in that post, there is so much in life beyond our control. We’re going to mess up and there will probably be someone around to see it. Instead of getting mad at the witness to our humiliation—or getting mad at ourselves for being human—we need to get up, shake it off, and move on. Learn what we can from the experience and try not to repeat our mistakes.

How we react to nearly anything is one of the few things in life within our control. It’s a choice we make every day. Now, I need to choose to get to work on my novel or in the next post I’ll be complaining about how I never complete any of the tasks on my to-do list.

In the meantime, leave a comment about the last time someone got mad at you over a mistake they made. Or better yet, the last time you were the one kicking the chair after stubbing your toe.

Happy Monday!