“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
‘They’ say things happen at the ‘right’ time. One thing that really speaks to me is this idea of taking 100% responsibility for one’s life. As a society, we are so quick to assign blame and pull out all the excuses as to why something did or did not happen. All the ‘he made me, she made me…’ finger pointing. There’s a reason why ‘the dog ate it’ became such a classic excuse. We relinquish all power when we go there. Where are we in this? I know by nature many of us are passive recipients of life and are at the mercy of what befalls us. We are facilitating the perpetuation of an entitled breed of human beings.
People talk about being stuck because of what their dysfunctional nuclear families did to them. ‘My mother did this, my father that…’ And then of course there’s me. What comes all too naturally for me is my quick ability to find fault with others, to pass judgement and criticise. Who is to blame? My Father or my Mother? I fight against these tendencies constantly. But they do rear their ugly head often enough. I guess it’s in my bloodstream. I’m aware of it, I work at it. I know it comes from somewhere, therefore that explains it but it certainly does not excuse it.
This is my problem, my issue. What matters is how I handle it and work to respond differently - to catch myself while it’s doing its internal dance before it parts from my lips. Not owning up to our actions - this takes away our part in doing anything different. We simply remain stuck while we continue to complain and feel miserable in our status quo of negativity. We don’t have to worry about any discomfort of stepping out and trying on any new responses in this place. There is no disqualifying the hurts and pain of our past. Our past, along with its inevitable issues and problems, contribute to who we are. But we can go beyond the pain of our ‘stuff’ and create new and good lives despite …
But we first must take charge of ourselves and decide we are capable of doing, being, and acting differently. We have to decide it’s up to us and not pass along our power to the blame and excuse game. Assigning blame and making excuses keeps us victimised. We don’t have to do anything different because it’s not about us, it’s about someone or something else. We’re simply the recipient. We may in fact be the recipient of external forces outside our control, but we have the control over our reactions and responses in what we do and how we handle it.
Ah, but beginning to look at ourselves and our responses might shake us up a bit. It means we might have to make a move, do something different, or try something new.
And that can be scary xxx
