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I want to share a secret with you. I love the 80s. But more importantly, I want to tell you what I think is one of the greatest pop songs from that time. “No one is to blame.” Howard Jones, Phil Collins…it’s good stuff. Look it up. But I’m not bringing up the song because of its lyrical genius; I’m talking about it because of the message. No one is to blame.

When you’re a student and things go wrong, you feel like everyone is against you. We’ve all been there. You feel like you didn’t get enough time for that assignment. A crew member didn’t show up. They didn’t have the tea you wanted at the coffee shop. We want what we want what we want it. But if we don’t get everything, we want to blame someone. Well, guess what? No one is to blame.

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I’m telling you this because I’ve had one of those weeks. Just when I thought I was getting caught up on all my work and had all my rehearsals in order, I had to drop everything to help out in a family emergency. (Don’t worry. Everything turned out fine.) Basically my schedule was interrupted. I lost an entire day I had earmarked to catch up on work. I wanted to blame someone. I know that’s selfish, but that was my initial gut reaction. But then I realized I was way off base. Really, I should not have been “catching up” in the first place.

I want to try something. I want to challenge each of us to be accountable to ourselves and to our talent. It doesn’t matter what department you’re in. It doesn’t matter if you are a Columbia graduate student or undergrad. None of those labels matter. But if you read this, you should take every opportunity to turn an obstacle into an opportunity to be more creative.

Suppose you find yourself standing on the train because some guy refused to move his bag from the empty seat. That’s the time to get the old brain cage working. Come up with a story, a piece of music, or some sort of conceptual vision.

Take this time slow down, be more playful in your life and use your skills as much you can. Write great screenplays, take great photographs, and create pithy status updates. But use every opportunity you have to get better at whatever it is you do. If you don’t, mark my words, “no one is to blame…except you.”