Today's Attitude (Portrayed by James Blunt)

There is a song on the radio right now that makes me cringe every time I hear it. It is a song that sums up the attitude of the world today quite nicely--and it's not a good attitude. Worse yet, it has a nice tune and is sung by a popular artist, which serves only to make people want to listen to it and internalize the theme.

The song is "Same Mistake" by James Blunt. I wanted to avoid putting the song on my blog because I didn't want to promote it, but sometimes it is necessary to share the idea and hope people stop to read my comments. I was able to find a YouTube video that did more to help me than hurt me: The video plays the song, but rather than showing Blunt's video it simply puts up the words to the song, saving me the bother of quoting it.




My problem with the song is the fact that the narrator is willing to admit he has a problem, which on the surface seems like a good thing, but he is unwilling to do anything about the problem. Rather, he asks that others take away his choice so he doesn't repeat the mistake--He is not mature enough to take responsibility for his own actions.

This is an issue that I see all the time with my students; they are perfectly willing to acknowledge they have shortcomings, but rather than fixing the problems they choose to blame others for the mistakes they make. "If you wouldn't ask me to do ______, then I wouldn't have to tell you I didn't do it." "You didn't give us time for ______, so I didn't finish it all." etc., etc..

I have heard people blame God for the same things. People wonder why God gave us free will if he was going to punish us for making the wrong choices. "If he is so powerful why doesn't he just force us to do the right thing?" "If God didn't want me to do that, then He shouldn't have let me be tempted to do it." (or worse, He shouldn't have temted me to do it)

I even catch myself in this attitude from time to time: blaming others for giving me a choice when I choose to do the wrong thing. Or not stopping me from doing something I shouldn't be doing. It's not a good attitude to have. I need to accept responsibility for my actions and work to improve myself.

This attitude is very prevalent in our society and Blunt's song serves only to reinforce it. It has no positive message, no sign of hope for change, just a negative mind-set that perpetuates a big problem present in society: I will not change, so if you want me to act differently you better change.