Accountability.

Money is the root of all evil. Cigarettes kill you. McDonald’s is causing America’s obesity problem. The woman was asking for it, dressing in clothes like that. It wasn’t my fault that I missed the deadline at work, other people made mistakes that slowed me down. “That’s just the way I am.” “He started it.” “The devil made me do it.”

This type of nonsense is infuriating. People give in to greed, to gluttony, to lust, to pride, to any and all sins…and they’re quick to place the blame on anything but their own shortcomings. In the court of public opinion, inanimate objects actually seem to often get more scorn than the people who abuse them.

In the movie Changing Lanes (a decent movie, worth a watch), there’s a scene where Samuel L. Jackson’s character, an alcoholic who is trying to improve but runs into problems at every turn, gets chewed out by his AA sponsor. This sponsor hits the nail on the head…

You know, booze isn’t really your drug of choice anyway. You’re addicted to chaos. For some of us, it’s coke. For some of us, it’s bourbon. But you? You got hooked on disaster.