We’re pretty good at placing blame at the feet of anything nearby: luck, weather, circumstance, mood, technical difficulties. I think it’s a natural reaction when things feel beyond our control or when we don’t want to take personal responsibility.

But often, the shortest path to correcting things is to assume the blame falls squarely on our shoulders instead of pointing fingers. It’s not an easy or natural path to follow because our inner dialog assures us we’re mostly right about things.

When I press play on the iPad and nothing happens I assume it’s the machinery that’s gone wonky only to discover, after a bit of cursing, I forgot to change inputs on the DAC.

It’s certainly easier to blame external forces, but more often than not a mirror might be a better fixit.