Who do you blame for where you are in your life right now?
I want you to be honest with yourself. The answer isn’t always easy, so take your time and think about it. Who is to blame, for better or worse, for how your life turned out?
Who is the first person that comes to your mind?
Is it your father for not loving you the way you needed?
Is it your mother for not giving you the kind of support you desired as a kid?
Is it an ex-boyfriend who broke your heart?
Is it an ex-husband that ripped your soul to pieces?
Is it a business partner that screwed you?
Is it your boss?
Who do you blame for the things you don’t like about yourself and your life?
You see, most people blame somebody externally for where they are in life. These people believe they are not responsible for their decisions, for the way things are. It’s an easy life to live.
One of the vilest human beings I ever met was a woman who could not be blamed for anything. Will call her Krista. Now Krista was one of the meanest S.O.B.’s you can imagine.
Anyone who disagreed with her would be instantly cut down. She brings up mistakes fifteen years past and rubs it in their face. She takes every opportunity to embarrass her kids so they feel beholden to her.
Almost everyone she knows hates her, but they’re family and they’re the kind of family that won’t abandon one another. Instead, they choose to be miserable together.
Krista is oblivious to all of this.
She lives her easy life, thinking the sun shines out of her ass. Anything bad that happens to her is the direct result of someone else’s actions.
For example, her daughter is a straight A student in high school, she plays varsity soccer and plays the cello. She’s never been in any serious trouble. Krista’s daughter is the dream child most parents wish they had.
So Krista’s kid comes home from a full day of school, it’s Friday and she wants to go to the movies. Krista snaps. Completely freaks out on her daughter. Krista has three kids she’s adopted and apparently her daughter should know better than to think she could ever go out. When she comes home, she has to take care of the kids.
Eventually, Krista’s daughter ran away and got married. She realized she would never be able to do anything good enough to please her mother. She was going to be stuck under her thumb her entire life if she wasn’t careful.
Her husband convinced her to get therapy and now she won’t even speak to her mother. That’s the good thing about going to therapy.
Therapy will enable you to figure out exactly why your screwed up childhood made you the way you are so you have somebody to wrap it up into a neat little story. You’ll have a neat little story about why you’re the exact way that you are.
Some of us still have not gotten over a love, a romance, or a friendship that went south. We’re easily caught up in the past because it dictates are future. But it’s hard to blame the people who have wronged us because so often we love them. We want them to be in our lives even if we’ll get hurt.
So instead of cutting the right person from our life we blame the wrong person. We direct our anger at people we know will stick around, so we don’t have to lose someone we feel is important.
Right now, I want to try an exercise. I do it in all my boot camps.
I want you to stand in front of a mirror and point the finger at the person who pisses you off.
If there’s no mirror, stand in front of a wall and pretend the person who wronged you, the person who is to blame for the way your life is right now. I want you to point a finger at them. I want you to take a look at how many fingers are pointing back at you.
That’s right, there are three fingers are pointing back at you.
One finger is pointing at that person. That person who might have triggered some things and caused some of the things in your life to happen.
But you, like everyone else, are still to blame for everything in your life. Every decision, every choice, every happy memory is your responsibility.
Granted, as a child you couldn’t prevent some of the things that happened to you and some of us did have horrific childhoods.
But right now as an adult, all your decisions are your own. You’re the cause and the effect. You’re the common denominator of why your life is exactly the way it is now.
It has nothing to do with the people you used to see in high school. The man who didn’t want to marry you is not at fault. You need to start taking responsibility for your actions.
You got the first job out of college where you were so excited. That boss just manipulated and beat you up and made you feel lousy about yourself. To this day, you can’t possibly do well in the working world.
Your boss is not to blame. You can leave at any time. You can make a change any day because you are an adult. It’s not dear old mom, dear old dad or Uncle Sam or Grandma Rose.
It’s you my friend. You are the full cause and effect of everything happens in your life. It’s all you.
Stop being the victim of your life. Start taking control of your life.
When you take control of your life, you’ll start to live the life you’ve always imagined. A life that is far more empowering to you. When you stand behind your decisions, you’ll know that when you fuck up, it’s all you,
When you accept responsibility, you give yourself the power to change and better your situation.
You are in charge!
For more from David go to David Wygant
Photo credit: recombiner / CC BY-NC-SA
