Nature VS Us

It was always said that natural disasters greatly impacted out lives, and that we have little control over it. However, does nature really affect our lives so much? Personally, I believe that we have more impact over our lives than nature does.

Let us first compare two thing with similar effects: volcanic eruptions vs Indonesia's annual forest fires.
From the most recent volcanic eruption, we know of its devastating effects on the health of people, as well as on the economy. Planes have to be grounded to prevent accidents from happening as a result of the volcanic ash. We have many, many people complaining about this and that, about how troublesome the volcanic eruption was. But doesn't the annual forest fires in Indonesia (started by humans) do the exact same thing?

We may not have control over nature, but we definitely have control over our own actions. We cannot choose when a volcano will erupt, but we can predict when it would happen. On the other hand, we can do something about our own actions, we can do something about what is done annually in Indonesia, something which has an impact as great as a natural disaster.

Of course, there are also things that happen which falls in the grey area between these two categories. The recent oil spill, for example, is not completely natural or man-made. It was an accident. Similar to natural disasters, it is impossible to control when it will happen, but we do have a certain extent of control over it. However, why is it that people are blamed for such incidents more than those which are completely caused by men?

Another example would be in gaming. Excuses include:
My mouse is acting weird.
I was experiencing lag.
My computer hung.
My keyboard key got stuck.
My computer self-destructed.
etc...

I believe many of us refuse to blame ourselves for anything bad that happens. People do not like taking the blame for an event that negatively impacted anything. We choose to blame it on things we cannot control, or blame someone else for failing to do something. It is rather unfair to say that accidents and natural disasters are the things that we should blame the most. We should be blaming ourselves for some of the things that are happening to us.

And I blame the distractions around me for making me forget about posting this earlier.