Transform Your Life with Radical Responsibility
Have you ever found yourself in a situation that you didn’t really want to be in?
Maybe you committed to helping someone with something...
Maybe you told someone you would do something for them…
Maybe you’ve crossed a boundary that you didn’t want to cross…
Maybe you’ve done something you didn’t want to do…
And then, during and after this process, you feel heavy resentment towards this person, place, or thing.
“I don’t even want to be here right now.”
“I should really be doing X”
“What a waste of time”
“I feel like sh*t doing this”
I FEEL you. I’ve BEEN there. Let me paint the picture for you:
My brother was home visiting from his military base in another state, but prior to that I told my friend I would help him with some home renovations. He calls me on one of the nights my brother was home, and said “I really need your help, this has to be done before we put in tiles tomorrow” [the abridged version so as not to bore you with home renovation talk].
I didn’t want to go, because I wanted to spend time with my family, but I also felt an obligation to because I had given someone my word I would help. At 9:30pm I went over thinking it would just be an hour and I could come home....I did not leave until nearly 2 am.
I was angry, I was upset with him, I did most of the work the whole time, and I just plain resented him at this point. I felt like he was pulling me away from what I really wanted to be doing, which was spending time with my family since we are rarely all together. I thought about how selfish he is, how little he cares about others, only putting himself first.
And then I realized...it’s all my fault. I felt resentment because I wasn’t taking responsibility for my own actions and decisions. I felt resentment because I was victimizing myself - there were plenty of points throughout the night when I thought to myself “I should leave now,” but didn’t.
I made the decision to go, to stay, to leave when I did. And I when I realized this while I didn’t feel great about it, the resentment towards him melted away, and it served as a reminder that I have to be better about setting boundaries for myself.
It’s not fair to blame another for YOUR personal decisions and actions. You always have control (unless of course it’s some kind of assault situation) in your life. So today I encourage you to take a look back and reevaluate - where in your life have you felt resentment towards someone? What caused this resentment? What decisions and actions did you take/make that led to this moment?
Our society perpetuates victimization and shifting the blame to others. Our decisions and actions and subsequent consequences never seem to be our fault - but hello, wake up, it is. This thought-process has to stop. And I promise when you take radical responsibility over the actions and decisions in your life, you will see a massive transformation - internally and externally. Can you imagine the world we would live in if everyone did this? Food for thought.
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