We all have things that we regret or dislike about our lives. Sometimes they are clear decisions or mistakes that we made that are or seem unchangeable. Sometimes it seems as if the world is against us, like we are defeated before we even begin. The latter may even be true, but today I’d like to make a personal challenge to find my personal responsibility in all parts of my life.
It occurs to me that this is one of the biggest determiners of happiness and success in one’s life. For instance, two neighbors might both be poverty stricken or ill, but one is happy, cheerful and loving while the other is closed up, lonely and bitter. Why? Or what makes a person unstuck after a failure? Why do some give up and some try again?
There may not be much one can do about being struck ill, for instance, but there is responsibility for how they manage their bodies and their condition. There is how they’ve cared for themselves in the past and decisions about how to do so in the future. There are decisions about how to handle change, failure, unfairness. Neither choice is right or wrong, but if it is taken responsibility for then one cannot be unhappy about it. It is just as fine for a failed entrepreneur to say “I just don’t want to work this hard to make it, I’d rather have a pension or benefits,” as to say “I want to run my own company, it is who I am, I will try again and I will succeed.” But these are both very different than saying “The system is unfair and it’s impossible for me to reach my dreams, so I’m stuck in this crappy life that I hate.”
Today I am going to begin to examine the things that I like and don’t like about my life and see where my responsibility lies and why I’m making the choices that I am.
