Mystery of my lost slippers

When something goes wrong it is easier to place blame than accept responsibility

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I lost my slippers.

They were my favourite slippers.

Purple in colour with white polka-dots.

I looked for them everywhere. I checked the shoe rack at my door. I searched outside my house. I looked around the house compound. I rummaged through the shelves in the store room. But they were nowhere to be found.

The weird thing is I know for a fact that I left my slippers outside my gate.

Where could they be?

That’s how it is around here. When I am looking for something, I can never find it. But when I am not looking for it, there it is right in front of my eyes.

And just like that, a couple of days later, I found my slippers. They were next to my neighbour’s shoe rack. Almost instantly, negative thoughts popped into my head.

“She stole my slippers!”

I immediately remembered all the things which went missing from my shoe rack– my Adidas sneakers, my black heels and even a few of my socks. It’s got to be her doing. It has to be. It must be.

A few days later, I bumped into my neighbour – she was placing a few joss sticks at the corner of her gate. I frowned as the thought of a slipper thief asking for forgiveness crossed my mind.

Just as I was about to ask if the purple slipper with white polka dots outside her shoe rack belonged to her, she smiled and greeted me.

“Morning! I think I have your slippers on my shoe rack. The cleaners must have gotten it mixed up while cleaning our corridor the other day. I’ll place it next to your front gate, ya?”

I felt really bad. Embarrassed actually. It is very easy to jump to conclusions about people around us, isn’t it? We all do it even though we don’t like to admit it. I guess that’s how our society seems to function these days. There is a serious lack of trust between us.

I guess when something goes wrong, we have a deep need to explain what caused the problem. And the easiest way is to blame someone. As a result, people are quick to judge others and equally quick to avoid or deny responsibility. Yes, it is indeed easier to blame people than to carry the responsibility of the mistake.

But why do we so often and so easily place the blame on others?

Perhaps we are only able to see ourselves as good by blaming others, finding fault in others and painting them as bad. In other words, focusing on the bad of others takes our minds off our own faults. It means we don’t have to accept the responsibility to change.

Maybe this is why some Malays blame the Chinese for their own lack of success and some Chinese blame the Malays for their own struggle.

I guess this is also why I chose to blame my neighbour for my missing slippers. It absolved me of my mistake ─ failing to take better care of my own things.

But then while the blame game may work miracles its relief is only temporary. It is also fraught with difficulties. You see, when people are blamed they don’t just take it passively. They almost always resist, fight back and retaliate. They continue to hold grudges against each other.

While I know it is tough to totally overcome our preconceptions and our eagerness to play the blame game, it is possible. If we try, if we are willing to put in the effort to analyse our thinking, we will be able to put aside those preconceptions.

At the end of the day, we do have a choice. We can put aside the negative thoughts that rob us of the opportunity to build a better community…if we choose to do so, that is.

After all, is it not better to lose our favourite slippers than to lose our sense of trust?