In honor of “Blame Someone Else Day” (which is January 13th, 2017) I offer this entry.
Are you 100% responsible for your life? The 100% figure throws many people off because there are some events that may not have been under their control. For years, I taught self-mastery and included the idea that we are responsible for everything that happens to us. The concept was that if we were not responsible, we could not fix it.
Today I would say that we are not responsible for everything that happened in life. For example, I was diagnosed with a muscle disease that was inherited. I didn’t have much control over that. Accepting the idea that we are responsible for everything still has the advantage. Taking responsibility for your life is great but, you can’t control how someone reacts to what you say or what you do. The problem is, we tend to look outside ourselves for the culprit. We do not take any responsibility. We are all conditioned to blame someone, to make excuses, or to complain when something does not go the way we would hope. If we were frustrated, upset or mad, we would often blame the event. Blaming the event or complaining about the event shifts the responsibility.
Here is a fly in the ointment, as my father would say, to find joy this concept would suggest that we give up:
- Making up excuses
- Complaining
- Focusing on what is wrong with no plan to fix it (my favorite)
- Playing the victim
Well, sometimes I don’t want to fix it. I just feel like complaining. My current problem is, I don’t have a lot of time to waste on being frustrated. I have wasted too much of my life trying to prove that I was right or that outside forces caused my results. When something happens, or doesn’t happen in life, ask these questions to get back on track;
- What thoughts/beliefs got me here?
- What did I say or not say that led me to this outcome?
- What do I need to do differently next time to get the result I want?
By asking yourself the right questions, you can move past the emotions you may be feeling (anger, guilt, resentment, frustration, etc.) to change the results. There is the assumption that you want to find joy. Like I said earlier, sometimes you just want to feel miserable. Either way, don’t blame anyone but yourself except, of course, on Blame Someone Else Day.
