TFH Principle #2: Fault vs. Responsibility

If something is someone’s “fault”, would you say that it is also their “responsibility”? Let’s take a deeper look at these two words and figure out if they’re synonyms.

Before we get into this: this is a warning that we’re going to be unpacking language a lot here. I’m not trying to be finicky, I promise. It’s my experience that intentionally using the *exact* language to identify what we think and feel removes the tension that comes with being vague. Vague communication leads to negative inference and results in a lack of trust between all parties involved in a discussion. This is one of my biggest pet peeves in the world, so if you ever have the pleasure (or misfortune) to converse with me in real life, I will very likely ask “what do you mean by that?” more than once. I am not a fan of having to rely on body language and tone to provide the subtext required to read between the lines of what someone is saying to uncover what it is they actually mean. Though, to be fair, I don’t have the time to go all Sherlock Holmes’ on your three word sentence. I have things to do. I just wish people would actually say what they mean. Anyway, back to the point!

Today’s lesson in syntax is brought to you by the words “fault” versus “responsibility”. Here’s a hypothetical for you:

Let’s say, at three o’clock on a Tuesday morning, you wake up to a text message. It’s your significant other that you have been with for almost a year. You’ve seriously started to plan your life with this person, have plans on moving in together next month, they make you feel like you’re living in a fairytale, everything is perfect. You open the text. It reads:

“I can’t do this anymore. I’m in love with someone else. I’m breaking up with you.”

You are, understandably, heartbroken, You spend the rest of the night, awake, emotionally distraught. Crying, calling anyone who will listen, trying to piece your world back together. Grieving, angry, in denial. The full spectrum of human emotions. It’s absolutely heart wrenching.

You are so consumed with your grief, in fact, that you’ve not paid attention to the time at all. You finally check the clock. It’s 9:30 AM. You were supposed to be at work a half hour ago. Here’s the question:

Who’s fault is it that you’re late? Whose responsibility is it for being late?

Feel free to pause here and take a moment to think about it. Continue from here whenever you are ready to hear my answer.

The person whose actions caused you to be late is your, now, ex. They are the one who is at fault for the events that took place and, had they not chosen to send that text at 3AM, you would have been on time to work. You would have had a completely normal day.

The person who is responsible for being on time to work, however, is you. You are the one who will have to call your boss and explain your tardiness. You are the one who will, potentially, get penalized for said absence.

Sometimes, people will make choices at our expense that will impact our lives far beyond that moment. It may never affect them. It is not, nor will it ever be, your fault that someone chose to hurt you. It will, however, always be your responsibility to pick up the pieces and heal.

Knowing this can be vital for setting boundaries and holding ourselves and others accountable for our actions. We’ve all had experiences in life where we’ve hurt people we love because the pain from our past impacted our present. We’ve also all been on the receiving end of poor treatment because someone else reacted from a place of hurt that had nothing to do with us. Combining this idea with Principle #1 can bring about some concurrent but uncomfortable truths:

Someone hurting us does not make them a bad person.

That does not mean we can’t set boundaries with that person.

We are allowed to remove people from our lives for causing harm, even if they are not bad people. We can accept their apologies and forgive them and still remove them from our lives. No one is entitled to a seat at our table, especially if they’ve hurt us.

We are not bad people because we’ve caused harm.

That does not mean the people we’ve harmed cannot set boundaries with us.

People we’ve harmed are allowed to remove us from their lives, even if we’ve apologized. Even if we’ve been granted forgiveness. We are not entitled to a place at other peoples’ tables, especially if we’ve hurt them.

We can sympathize with others, make room to understand what reasons led to them hurt us, and also hold them responsible for healing that trauma. We also owe it to ourselves to take responsibility for our wellbeing by doing what we need to do to either protect our peace or pressure ourselves to grow.

If you’ve read all the way, thanks for sticking with me so far! I’m hoping to make this series a comprehensive resource for people at all stages of life to benefit from. Coming soon, we’ll dive deeper into intent vs. impact, how to turn a fight into a productive conversation, and building a toolbox to manage our feelings.

P.S. Feel free to leave a comment if you want me to touch on anything specific!

I'd love to hear from you!