Let’s be honest with each other: one of the easiest things to do is play the blame game. It’s easier to point fingers at people for our wrongdoings. It’s also very convenient because you get to just live like you are the saint and have absolutely no idea why you did something, but just for a second.
But what stays forever is the guilt. The guilt eats you up until you get something else to replace it. Sometimes, you might even convince yourself that you’ll start working on yourself or start doing better. Whatever gets you to sleep at night, but it just ends up going nowhere.
And so this year, okay not even this year, sometime before this year, I promised myself I was going to take responsibility for my actions. I didn’t like the fact that a lot of things were happening in my life and I could have had control over them, but I wasn’t doing that. And I kept shoveling everything onto one particular person’s head. You’re the reason this is that the sky is blue because of this and that you did. Ughhh. Looking back, I’m cringing, but it was nice to do it at that time.
I realized if I could take responsibility for my actions, I could also control a lot of things. For example, in a case where I was taken for granted by someone and then felt like I wasn’t worthy enough, instead of blaming the person who took me for granted, I would just accept the fact that I allowed myself to be taken for granted. Maybe by being present when I wasn’t supposed to or something else because in this world, whatever you allow is what people will do to you, except in a few cases.
And so after accepting that I equally partook in whatever happened to me, I moved to making sure that I never put myself in a place where that situation is going to happen to me again. If I ended up being unproductive because of an emotional turmoil I went through over something someone did to me, I just made sure that I was never emotionally available for that person just so the same experience wouldn't repeat itself.
In all, I didn’t just take responsibility; I also took control of the situation. But just imagine if I always decided to be blaming those around me for everything happening to me. I definitely was never going to gain anything. And I want to reiterate that sometimes maybe it’s true that the thing happening to you is someone’s fault, but pointing fingers won’t do anything for you except to bring you finger ache.
Images are mine