The Blame Game

I was in Costa Rica learning to kite surf when I snapped my wrist. 

The instructor gave me a kite that was too big, and as I launched from the beach on the gusty day, harnessed in like the first chimp in space, it picked me up and tomahawked me into the sand. That night in a Costa Rican hospital I posted a photo on Instagram with a caption venting about my “shit head instructor” who almost killed me. Supportive comments flooded in. Even through the miasma of painkillers, the comments gave me a moral tickle. 

If I reflect on the incident honestly, though, I should have known better. The instructor was most likely getting paid four-dollars a day and through the language barrier, I doubt he knew that it was only my second day kite surfing. I saw the red flags and didn’t listen.

Blame is like a weighted vest that can shield us in the short term, but slows us down over time.

Responsibility is agency. Agency is power.