A Culture of Blame

My job puts me in many a strange situation. It was never a job I thought I would have. It's not really the sort of job you think about at any time when someone asks you what you want to be when you grow up.

The thing I want to talk about today is devolution.

I have never in my life seen anyone devolve so totally as I did this week. I saw a grown woman go from being a 30 something to a little child in the space of several minutes.
It was freaky. Seeing someone who has functioned like an adult in every situation you've seen them in, suddenly sit there, rocking, shaking, refusing to open her eyes and crying for her mummy.
In amongst the info dump that happened in those 20 odd minutes where I tried to talk her down, or back to reality, I noticed something. A decided lack of responsibility.
Everyone else was responsible for the position this woman found herself in.

It is so sad that a great number of us have crappy moments in our lives and we just get on with it, but there is an increasing number, it seems, who think everything bad that happens to them is because of what someone else does or did. It's the police's fault that someone goes to jail - it's got nothing to do with the drugs they were on and the actions they took. It's the old person's fault they nearly died because they wouldn't hand over their money and jewellery. And the list goes on.
Me, things don't go as planned well I come up with another plan. I may rant and rave, even throw the occasional pillow but I certainly don't go and commit a crime and blame someone else. Believe me I have had quiet a few downs in my life, more bumps in the road than I would have liked. It can be hard when you know people who always seem to land on their feet. You know the ones - those who squander the amazing opportunities you would give, well not quite anything for, but then they get another and another. You want to slap them upside the head, jump up and down and demand they introduce you to the person who made them the offer because you would like nothing more than to say 'pick me'. It is not to be though, and so we pick ourselves up and go on.
I don't really know where this culture of blame has come from and to be honest I don't know if it's really getting worse or if I just notice it more the older I get.
It is so sad. It makes me want to just take some of these people and shake some sense into them. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure that won't work. No amount of shaking will make a difference till these people want to step up and start acting like adults and taking responsibility. Sure crap happens and it's not always in our control what happens to us but how we respond, that is within our control.

Where I'm Going, Not Forgetting Where I've Been

I had my first army reserves interview this week. It was productive, a little funny and a bit thought provoking.
Let me address those concepts one by one. The productive first I think. I did very well in my general ability/math test, to the point where I can apply for what ever roll I want, the only things that appeared to be off the table were the roles that are available to men only. I took my uni grades not lower high school grades and they wouldn't accept them - said I was over qualified. Also you have to fill out a very comprehensive medical questionnaire. This may be where I have a hiccough. I filled it out honestly which means to the question 'have you ever self harmed?' I answered yes. Of course I was not impressed with the fact self harm was lumped into the same question as suicide,  because I never came close to that and anyone who really knows anything about self harm knows that the two aren't necessarily linked, people who self harm don't always escalate to suicide and those who commit suicide often don't self harm. The nurse said there may be further questions about that. I said fine it's all out there in the open any way, not something I brag about but not something I hide away either. The long and the short is I should hear from my case officer soon and I can progress with my application.
To the funny; well there was the inappropriately popped open button, the trigonometry questions that caused me to giggle (I haven't done those sort of questions in 20 odd years), the fact I was the only female (there was only 3 of us in a group of about 20) over the age of about 20, and the fact the test computer knocked 10 years off my age. Not to mention my interviewer said one of the roles I had written down as being interested in was only available to those who had a degree in journalism, to which I responded with a 'here it is,' and put it on the table in front of him. He also told me I was a little different, well obviously, I'm female and twice the age of most candidates.
This brings us to the thought provoking part of our blog tonight. I had hit my pre-interview goal for physical fitness 45-50 sit ups, 10 push ups and 5.1 on the sprints, (point of note my pb is 5.2). Then I mentioned this to one of the other candidates in the form of saying sprints were my weakness but I was happy because I hit my goal which was police fit. His response was 'well that's not very fit'. Then went on to say the test was only base line fitness, blah, blah, blah. In one fell swoop he disregarded all the effort I had put in to get to that point. Then a 17 year old said it should be easy to do 50 push ups and level 11 on the sprints. Candidate #1 wasn't impressed with the young guys response due to his age. I told them both the suck it up because I was much older than them. Yeah sure it's funny that Candidate #1 got immediate karma but it still bugged me a bit.
It was the total disregard to my effort that pissed me off the most. He made a judgment based on his own paradigm of fitness, he has no concept as to what it is to be an almost 40 year old mother of two, who up until 18 months ago couldn't bring herself to exercise in any way other than the occasional walk to the shop (I figured being on my feet most days for work was enough). Me I now run 4 km's in about half an hour and in two and a half weeks or so that I'd improved my sprints from 2.8 and an 'OMG what the hell do I think I'm doing' to 5.2 sprints and 3 x 400m fartlek laps after. On top of all that I do weights and core training about 5 - 6 nights a week. This is a big thing. Up until about 2 months ago my exercise consisted of three 3km runs a week and even then it was an effort to drag my butt into my training shoes. Running is still not something I really like, I do however like weights, but it's not such a drag.
In two months I have come a huge way, so while these young gym monkeys who have very little life experience will continue to judge me on the me they see now, I need to remind myself that they know so very little. While I pursue this part of my life I should never lose sight of where I came from, it gives perspective and hopefully when I feel down, and yes even judged, I can hold on to the knowledge that I have already come one hell of a long way.