ONE’S OWN MISTAKE

I knew a man who was very healthy. God had blessed him with a good mind. Yet he never succeeded in life. Whatever work he began always ended in failure. In the end, he lost his mental balance. One day, in that state, he met with an accident when a jeep collided with him, and he died as a result of the accident.

The simple reason for his failure was that he never used his abilities in the right direction. He always blamed others for his setbacks. But the truth is, apart from himself, there was no one who could really be held responsible for his failures.

He enrolled in a school for his education. But before he could complete matriculation, he became interested in politics. As a result, he failed his tenth-grade exam, and his studies could not continue further. He opened a shop, but he kept no fixed schedule. He would open and close it whenever he liked. The result was that the shop eventually closed down. He also took up a job, but he considered it below his supposed standard. He remained constantly irritated and often quarreled with his employer. Finally, the employer, fed up with him, dismissed him. So, it went.

In this way, he kept trying different things, and every effort ended without success. He was always complaining about others—this person is prejudiced, that person acted out of hostility, another does not want to see me succeed. Thus, he kept putting the blame for his failures on others. He spent his whole life trying to prove others wrong, but in the end, the result was that he himself was proved wrong. Blaming others for one’s own ruin may feel satisfying for a moment, but the price is heavy. As a result, a person’s downfall continues endlessly, and in this world of cause and effect, it never truly ends.