Is No My Job!

You're stuck, right? Wondering how you got where you are? Why did life dump so much manure on your doorstep? Yeah, I know. Been where you are. Twenty years of wondering what the hell happened.

"Twenty years now
Where'd they go?
Twenty years
I don't know
I sit and I wonder sometimes
Where they've gone"
- Bob Seger

There's certainly a lot of finger pointing going on, nowadays. I'm not sure at what point in our evolution we stopped accepting personal responsibility and started blaming everyone else, but it's having a detrimental effect on our souls, and this prevents us from moving forward in life.

You think we would have learned from our childhood days of chanting, "Not me!" when accused of events you knew you were guilty of, but instead we've managed to transfer our childhood fear of getting in trouble into full blown adulthood, where "Not me!" absolves you of responsibility from just about anything ranging from bad customer service on up to criminal homicide, and then some.

Accepting personal responsibility is one of the easiest things to do, yet one of the hardest things to live by, mainly because there's no one there to hold you accountable for your actions. They're too busy pointing fingers at other people, and if no one else is doing it, why should you? Fortunately, the age old parental adage about jumping off a bridge if all your friends are doing it still applies here, so let's make this real simple:

You are completely responsible for you.

While I did use the word 'simple', I'll be first to say that it did take a very long time before I could fully comprehend the above statement and implement its meaning into my life on a daily basis, but I did it. I know it's within the realm of possibility, especially when you come to understand just how to accept personal responsibility in all that you do.

Let's first clear the air by listing the things that didn't put you where you are at this very moment in your life:

"God", Fate, Destiny (or any other supposed 'divine' force)
Family
Friends
Spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend
Career
Economic conditions
Good luck, bad luck, dumb luck, or any other kind of luck!

You're where you are because of the choices you've made. That's it. Everything you've done up to now you've opted to do. The question is, were they effective choices you've made? Perhaps, perhaps not. Forrest Landry, an old mentor of mine, had this to say:

"All levels of self, self-thought, and self-feeling must be known, acknowledged, and accepted to make effective choices."

I could spend years breaking down this statement into the essence of its meaning and still probably not scratch the surface, so let's just say that accepting personal responsibility is a daunting task. However, it is a necessary task if the soul is to truly grow in this life. Once you start taking the heat for your actions instead of giving it out, you'll realize that you can change anything you want in you life.

Anything.

This is an amazing sense of empowerment, like waking up one morning and finding out you're Superman. You wouldn't hesitate for a second to go outside and fly up into the heavens, would you? So why are you sitting there blaming everyone else for your troubles?

You made yourself fat.
You made yourself poor.
You made yourself alone.
You made yourself addicted.

You've made plenty of negative choices. Now make a positive choice, an effective choice. Feed the soul. Light the fires of motivation. Make yourself fly.

It is your job, and yours alone.