Passing the Buck? Taking Responsibility for my Decisions and Yours!

My children have mastered the art of passing the buck. No matter what they do wrong they manage to blame someone else for what they did. If I point out a fault the immediate reply is "but he or she did this to me." It takes a little effort to make them admit that regardless of what so and so did the decision that they themselves made was wrong. We grown ups do the same thing. Eve ate the forbidden fruit, gave it to Adam and when they got caught what did Adam say? "The woman gave it to me!"
Sin is so dumbfounding to the understanding that it leaves us speechless of any real excuse. I ask my children? "Why did you do this or that?" And what do they tell me? "I don't know." They really don't know! Neither do I! It is hard to get a handle on why we make wrong decisions.
We make decisions out of a context. We can let what others do influence our decisions or we can make our decisions in spite of external influence. The latter is hard to do. The fact is that other people do influence us. Their decisions affect us. We are not absolutely autonomous in this world. Freedom is only freedom in certain bounds. The singer was hitting on some heavy philosophy when she sang "freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose." Fact is we live in a world that gives us a context for decision making--good or bad.
If I sit in this chair rather than that one it was because conditions were such that influenced my decision. It may seem arbitrary but if we explore the possibilities it is not really an arbitrary decision . Let us be mindful of our power of influence of others in our decision making and our power of influence on others in their decision making.