Maravi

Blaming others for self-created problems

Blaming others for self-created problems
By The Post
Fri 04 Jan. 2013, 13:10 CAT

Our opposition political parties have serious organisational problems. And the earlier they admit they have got problems, the better it will be for them because it is very difficult to solve or address problems you are denying.

When they sometimes acknowledge their problems, the blame is on others - on the Patriotic Front and its government and us in the media they consider hostile.

Even the current organisational problems the MMD is facing, the blame is on the Patriotic Front. And MMD president Nevers Mumba is on record on this. Even the laws that the MMD itself enacted and enforced, today when they are being enforced on them, the blame is on the Patriotic Front government.

"Ninety-nine per cent of failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses" (George Washington Carver). You are never a failure until you begin to blame somebody else. Stop blaming others for the problems you have created for yourselves. You will find that when you become good at making excuses, at blaming your problems on others, you won't be good at anything else. Excuses are the tools a person with no purpose or vision uses to build great monuments of emptiness.

You can learn from your mistakes if you don't waste your time denying and defending them; people who admit they are wrong get a lot further than those who prove they are right.
It is not the Patriotic Front that made the MMD make wrong leadership choices.

It was not the Patriotic Front that made the MMD choose Rupiah Banda, a UNIP member, to become their leader. And it is not the Patriotic Front that made the MMD vote for the people they voted for at their last convention and in the elections they organised to choose their current key leaders. If they chose wrong leaders, as some of them are today saying, they should simply accept the consequences of their own choices and actions.

This applies to the problems the UPND is facing today of being in opposition for a very long time and for being outdone by a relatively new political party - the Patriotic Front.

It was the miscalculation of the UPND leadership of thinking they could take over the leadership of their pact with the Patriotic Front and make Hakainde Hichilema the presidential candidate over Michael Sata. When this failed, they were convinced that no opposition political party, including themselves, could defeat the MMD on their own.

The Patriotic Front went it alone while the UPND opted for a loose and unholy alliance with the MMD, which even they themselves were ashamed of and were not ready to admit publicly, and still lost the elections. Today they are in limbo and seeming directionless. They don't know whether they are going or they are coming. Their leadership seems more empty, more frustrated, more angry, more regional than ever before.

They are sulking at everyone and everywhere. They tried to do some pragmatic manoeuvring to make themselves leaders of Parliament by sponsoring Richard Kapita to become the Speaker of our National Assembly. But that too failed, leaving them helpless, confused and directionless. But instead of accepting their self-created misery, they have never hesitated to blame this on others, including.

It is said that what poison is to food, alibis are to a productive life. A proverb says that "Work brings profit; talk brings poverty." It is said that some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to do when all they really need is one reason why they can.

One of the biggest alibis is regret. Don't leave any regrets on the field - give your all in the game of life. The most valuable thing, we think, that can be learnt from life is to regret nothing. Eliminate your regrets, for the truth is that a thousand regrets do not pay one debt; regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it. It is only good for wallowing in.

When a winner makes a mistake, he says, "I was wrong"; when a loser makes a mistake, he says, "It wasn't my fault." Do you admit, "I was wrong," or do you say, "It wasn't my fault?" A winner explains; a loser explains away.

Who has heard the key leadership of UPND admit their failure, their mistakes in last year's elections? Who has heard Hakainde admit that he was wrong in his assessment that he was more popular than Michael? Who has heard Hakainde admit that he was wrong in thinking that no opposition political party could defeat the MMD on its own?

Dishonest people lack no excuses.
We have many reasons for failure but not a real excuse. Excuses always replace progress. And Philippians 2:14-15 gives wonderful guidance: "In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing, so that no one can speak a word of blame against you."

Alibis and excuses should be cremated, not embalmed. The person who excuses oneself always accuses oneself. Denying a fault doubles it. It is said that the best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You don't blame them on your mother, the ecology or some other force. You realise that you control your own destiny.

Don't buy the alibi. We should live our lives like Florence Nightingale, who said, "I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse."
Some people seem to be faultless. Is this possible? We have never heard them admit a weakness, a mistake or error! Is this possible in politics? Everything wrong is always blamed on others, on their enemies, perceived or real. The dishonesty, hypocrisy of these little demi-gods is really frightening.

There is no excuse for being full of excuses. "Admit when you are wrong, and you will avoid embarrassment" (Sirach 20:3). And "value yourself at your true worth" (Sirach 11:28). Stop blaming others for the problems you have created for yourselves. The opposition is in the state it's in today because of its own weaknesses, its own errors, its own wrong attitudes, actions and decisions.

Labels: MMD, NEVERS MUMBA, POLITICAL VIOLENCE

posted by MrK @ 5:26 PM