Who is at fault? Mickey mouse wisdom

Who is at fault?

This is a frequent question we hear from everyone when something really goes wrong. And it feels like we are doing some damage control by doing it. However, If you ask a HR person, who is at fault? I would say he or she will not answer directly. Really speaking who is at fault is a question of the past, even in work setup, even in mindfulness. And I will explain both.

Bottlenecks of life

It is not long before I have wrtten about bottlenecks of life and fishbone diagrams. Infact, that is just like finding who or what went wrong. Sometimes we will exactly pinpoint it to who, what and where. Sometimes we would not. But more importantly we may find a multitude of reasons behind ommisions of commisions of individuals or groups. And if we get the big picture, we would find, it is due to the errors in the system that we use, can be upgraded so such faulty actions do not happen.

Migrating birds in the lagoon

Swiss cheese model - Mickey mouse wisdom

Infact this is exactly what the Swiss cheese model suggests. If you do not know about it, I will explain. Have you seen how they draw cheese in cartoon diagrams of Mickey mouse? A block of cheese would have several bubbles in it. And if we cut square pieces from different parts and line them up and look from side, we would not see through to the other side from any of the holes. But if we repeatedly do this experiment with 100 more chese blocks, we would find one rare occation where the holes do line up. And that is exactly what happens when something goes wrong. Infact the "Who is at fault?" question technically answers only about the last piece of cheese which had a hole in it. Forgetting all the fifty pieces which had holes and lead you there freely. And this is a great wisdom to have for someone who wants to become a CEO, or live a mindful life.

Mass shooting

I can give you an example. Imagine, a mass shooting happens in somewhere. And first question which every media try to answer is who is the Shooter and his background. And after a week nobody would even talk about it. Unless we look at everything about that person, still we would not find out what went wrong. We might attribute it to a bad treatment he got from the society, a mental illness, free access to guns and even watching too much violent films. And behind each of these reasons, there are untracable amout of reasons. Even human development of gun powder is a reason for a mass shooting to happen. But, I would be called a mad person if I say it as a reason in a court. Infact it is only philosophers goes that deep into a question after all. But, for different people they can stop at different levels.

News agents - will find reasons, why he became a mass shooter.

Police - will only needs to find the shooter and his associates.

Chief in charge of the police - will find out what went wrong in the police response

The policy makers, will look into the trend in gun violance and firearm laws.

The defence lawyer will find out good things in the shooter (only few holes in the cheese), than anyone else, while the procecutors will identify this a violent crime (rotton chese with many holes).

The list goes on, and you get the picture. It all depends on which level are you seeing the problem. If I am far away corner of the world that news wouldn't even matter. And I would not go into any depth of it.

Common Crows

Mindfulness on ants.

I will end up the who is at fault there, to tell you a little story of mindfulness on ants.

I was watering the plants other day. And after watering I saw bunch of ants were fleeing through grass, carrying their eggs. It seems I have flooded their beloved home, and created a crisis. And my little daughters were discussing "Who is at fault?". And the answer is obvious at first, "It is the dad" He watered the plants, and drowned the ants!. And then the wisdom kicked in. Maybe they could not rationalised their father being a cruel person. They shouted, "It is not the dad, It is the sun at fault!" And I was even suprised. That is a wonderful explanation. And it is the Sun's fault. If the tropical sun did not burn the grass in the first place, I would not have to water it. They stopped there. And yet, with mindfulness wisdom, I did identify the truth is it was nobody's fault. Everything in the universe is so much interconnected. And this is why I argued lung cancer is a reason for lung cancer in the first place (Check out the download). It is bizzare, yet that is one way to overcome the guilt of the past we carry. Not only that it can be the gateway to profound wisdom which will liberate us from all the burden of life.

Whom did you find any fault lately? In others? In you?

Take home message?

Really? do you even need a take home message? I would say, take home message is let it sink deep into you, if you find fault in anyone, it is just that you haven't seen deep enough into any reasons. And If you end up fault is in you, Still look deep into yourself.

Whales and the Surfer