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| Rowing Erg Courtesy of Google Images |
An ongoing American Studies discussion has been about “the stories we tell ourselves” and I thought a lot about it, especially during rowing practices. I realized some reoccurring patterns, between the stories I told myself, and my performance.
For example, if I did a piece (a specific workout usually dictated by time or distance) on Monday, on the erg (an indoor rowing machine) and I did better than expected or better than most of my teammates, then I would tell myself, “Wow I am a fabulous rower, a better rower than all these people, evident by my results on the erg”. However if on Tuesday, I did badly on a piece I would most likely think, “Wow, today was a bad day. I got very little sleep last night and I had a looming cold all day”. Now whether or not that was true, I would still tell myself that just to make myself feel better. Of course I couldn't possibly be the reason for my own failure because, I am that fabulous rower that pulled so well on Monday and beat the rest and there is no possible way that on Tuesday I could have done so poorly, unless some uncontrollable factor came into play.
These observations lead me to think about all the times I have made excuses for my own shortcomings. Why I couldn’t perform better on that piece, why my test grades weren’t higher, why I couldn’t finish my homework at a reasonable hour. I came to realize that most of the time; these types of things are my own fault, not the world’s fault. This is both a lesson in growing up and a theme that, in America particularly, seems to be forgotten by too many of the world’s adults.
Why “in America particularly” you may ask? This trait is commonly found in Americans because we believe that we cannot possibly be the reason for failure. It is always someone or something else. We can’t be held responsible for failure because America is the land of success and as Americans we do not fail. Americans blame one another or god or nature or even the weather, because those are all outside, uncontrollable forces. But we never look to ourselves.
Yet it is the people that do look to themselves and do blame themselves, that succeed. They succeed because after failure, instead of blaming others or the weather, they look at themselves and take responsibility for the failure. They find the reason for failing and then they find a way to fix it and a better way to operate for next time. Ironically these are the people that make America the land of success.
Great linking of a common occurrence to something larger, though I wish you could be more specific about how America or Americans engage on this behavior.
ReplyDeleteBTW, what you describe is commonly called the Fundamental Attribution Error in social psychology. Check it out.
I agree with this statement, where if we don't succeed as well as we expected ourselves to, we automatically blame someone else. I am guilty of this, for example on tests. If I do poorly on a test, I sometimes try to find a way to blame someone else, like the teacher. I'll tell myself they didn't teach the unit well, or never taught us how to do a certain problem. But in the end, does it really matter whose fault it is? Ofcourse not! If a college is looking at that test score, they won't feel sympathetic because my teacher never taught me well. It all turns back to my fault, which is why as you said the people who just move past it and learn to read the textbook to help learn will do better on the next test.
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