I work with a wide variety of personalities in
my job as a mediator. Since I’m supposed to be non-judgmental while I guide the
parties to a mutually agreeable solution to their problem I spend a lot of time
listening to stories that support their position. Often, the stories are exactly
that … a story. Designed to explain why things happened the way they did.
And all too often the story completely
denies any responsibility for what happened.
Just recently I had a case
where the defendant blamed the plaintiff for the injury the plaintiff had received
because “they should have been walking on the other sidewalk across the street”
and “the medical treatment they got cost
too much money and I don’t believe I need to pay that much” for the injury caused
by their negligence. They were eager to admit that an injury had happened, but
blind to their responsibility for causing the accident and the injury. It was
all the other person’s fault for being present and therefore they were responsible
for the accident.
Believing as they did, the
defendant insisted that they didn’t need to discuss the situation and certainly
didn’t owe any money to anyone. They also believed that the plaintiff owed them
money for having the temerity to sue them for damages. Not all mediations are
successful and this one went back to the court … where the judge ruled the
defendant had totally responsibility and must pay for the damages. Something
any reasonable observer could have predicted.
In my practice I’m seeing
this attitude occurring all too often because my generation taught the younger
generation that failure is society’s fault and that the individual is not
responsible for anything other than self-satisfaction. And the younger
generation continued and expanded that silliness by insisting that no one should suffer the
stigma of failure.
I don’t have any solution,
all I can do is hope that in the future (near future, I hope) the idea of resiliency
and responsibility takes root and finds fertile ground.
