Hold everybody accountable? Ridiculous!    W. Edwards Deming

My father-in-law recently read about a couple of people who went to a restaurant in England. After a leisurely meal, one of the fine diners asked for a tooth pick.

Then came the reply from the waiter: "Sorry Sir, we do not provide tooth picks because they are potentially dangerous."

Pardon me? It's like saying that being wealthy means you are corrupt - a criminal.

Think for a moment. Money is just a piece of paper. It's an object. It doesn't think for itself. It doesn't plan to wreck havoc or to add value. However, the person using it determines how it is applied; for good or for bad.

The same is true for tooth picks. Yes, they are sharp, wooden objects, but they do not choose, they do not act, they do not plan. They are objects; nothing more, nothing less. By design, they are supposed to 'be safe'. What we do with them is obviously another matter.

Should I accidentally stick a tooth pick in my eye, it may have a seriously negative impact on the enjoyment of my meal. When I allow my kids to play around with them like daggers, then tooth picks become weapons of pointed destruction. Take note: the consequences we face merely mirror our actions.

Our apparent inability to accept the consequences of our actions, and our strikingly odd capacity to blame other people and objects for our err in judgment, and then sueing them or it, seems to compel institutions to do strange things to protect themselves, like banning tooth picks. "Tooth picks are dangerous," they say. To whom?

As long as we blame the world around us for our troubles, we abdicate control over our own destinies. Being a victor, rather than a victim, gives us power of choice, and it frees us from the slavery of yet another whiplash reaction imposed upon the people...by the people...for the people.