#016: buck-passing /甩鍋 (shuǎi guō)
不是我！/It's not me!
“The BUCK STOPS here!”
The famous “The BUCK STOPS here!” sign was kept on the desk of Harry S. Truman, the former U.S. President, in the Oval Office. On the reverse side, the sign reads, "I'm From Missouri" which refers to “I'm from Missouri. You've got to show me.” Buck-passing, shuǎi guō (甩鍋), refers to the act of shifting the blame and playing the blame game.
「甩鍋行為就此打住!」
美國前總統杜魯門的白宮辦公桌上擺放著一塊「甩鍋行為就此打住!」的牌子，這塊牌子的背面還寫著「我來自密蘇里州」，意思是俗語中的「我來自密蘇里州，你得給我看證據。」甩鍋指的是推卸責任，互相踢皮球。
Self-knowledge
To know or not to know? Socrates famously said, ’An unexamined life is not worth living.’ It sounds easy while it may, in reality, pain ourselves to learn the dark and weak part about ourselves. Sometimes, choosing to simply look away and pass the buck may alleviate this pain. It is as if to open the pandora’s box when we proactively gain self-insights. We may live ignorantly and innocently when we have no idea about ourselves. Once the box is opened, the truth behind it is too hard to handle and it is then a road of no return.
自知之明
知道好還是不知道好？蘇格拉底曾言：「未經審視的生活是不值得過的。」聽起來容易，然而意識到自己黑暗軟弱的一面是件痛苦的事情。有時候乾脆選擇把頭一扭，推卸責任可能減輕這種苦痛。了解自己有時候彷彿打開潘朵拉的盒子一般，不知道的話反而還可以無知地、天真地過下去，一旦打開盒子後，事情背後的真相也許難以承擔，是條不歸路。
‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’
Well, it is just an intrinsically difficult task to know oneself in the course of one’s life. To admit that we may not be what we think we can be and adjust our direct to somewhere else is also fine. If we can’t stand the heat, then go somewhere else other than the kitchen. This saying, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen’, refers to a situation where someone wants to get involved in something but are deterred to bear the potential responsibilities.
「怕熱就別進廚房！」
好吧，人生在世了解自己本來就不是一件容易的事情。承認自己也許不是我們所想要的樣子，並且就此重新導向未來也滿好的。要是無法忍受熱氣的話，就去除了廚房外的地方吧。這個說法原本說的是想要做某件事情但卻對於可能需要承擔的責任卻步的情況。
Courage to bear the responsibility or toxic cycle of self-blame?
The bottom line is: being able to tell the differences between the characterological self-blame from the behavioral self-blame is handy to understand whether we are working up the courage to bear the responsibility and simply being trapped in the toxic cycle of self-blame.
擔當的勇氣或是無謂的自責？
最重要的是，能夠辨明個性自責和行為自責兩者間的不同，有助於我們了解自己是否鼓起承擔責任的勇氣或只是陷入無止盡的自責漩渦。