You Are Responsible for Your Life

You are responsible for your life.  Not someone or something else, just you.

People can “do you wrong”, or “rip you off”, or make mistakes that impact you, but the more responsibility you take for yourself, the more empowered you will feel and be.

I was watching the news during Hurricane Sandy and they had a woman on and she said “Someone needs to tell us what to do!”  It was a while ago now, but I hear those words in my head over and over as I watch more and more people not taking responsibility for their own lives.  In this case it was a weather disaster and there wasn’t much that the government could do beyond what was already in place.  Rather than do anything at all, she was screaming and crying “someone tell me what to do”.  Say what?  Um, calm down, hunker down, get water, food and blankets and wait for reinforcements.  DO NOT run around the neighbourhood choosing to do nothing except wait for someone to tell you what to do.

Some of us will never be in a situation like that.  Not the hurricane/weather event situation ~ the hopelessness of needing someone to tell you what to do to help yourself situation.  Most people had warning of the hurricane.  A lot of them had food and clean water on hand, generators, candles ~ they had prepared for what was about to happen.  They were not asking for someone to tell them what to do, they were doing what they knew to do.

I also was watching a program about pharmacists being under a lot of pressure and screwing up prescriptions or not catching drug interactions.  One story was a woman who apparently stayed on a drug that was interacting with another drug for weeks.  She got very ill, went to the hospital, came out of the hospital and then wound up back there.  She was in the hospital for a long time after.  Now, I do have compassion for her, but having some personal power and responsibility in your own life goes a long way to keeping you safe.  If you start an new drug and get sick ~ hey maybe question the drug ~ look it up online even, the information is there for you, stop taking it ~ do something to take some responsibility for your own health and life.

The government, pharmacists, doctors, police ~ they are all fallible human beings just like the rest of us.  I’m sure that some don’t really care about you.  I am also sure that MOST care about you more than you even realize.   The thing is, you cannot put all responsibility for your safety or your happiness in someone or something else and come out unscathed.

This can work for personal relationships too.  I was in a job where I didn’t want to leave because I thought my boss couldn’t manage without me.  I would have felt bad leaving.  Then my boss up and quit and I was left with a different (none to friendly) boss.  Meanwhile I had missed out on a good job opportunity.  Really, where would blame go here?  I am not big on ‘blame’ so to speak; however I do take 100% responsibility for the fact that I missed that opportunity.  My boss on the other hand wound up with a great job ~ not that he didn’t care for the people he left (me), he just took responsibility for HIS life and jumped at an opportunity (guess that was why he was the boss).

Even with spousal relationships you need to take some responsibility for yourself.  You cannot ‘blame’ your spouse for your life.  You created the situation.  You can stay or you can go, you can put up with stuff, or not; but it is on you to be responsible for you.  You can rely on each other for some things ~ I rely on my husband for some things, he relies on me for some things, however we would NOT perish without each other.  We do not normally blame each other for things or make each other responsible for our happiness.

If you have no idea where the finances are at in your household, who is responsible for that?  No sense in blaming your spouse for hiding money, or being irresponsible ~ you didn’t get involved enough.  If there is not enough money coming into the household, do you blame your spouse, or do you empower yourself, take responsibility and make more money yourself.

You need to take responsibility for your own life.  You are powerful ~ stop acting like you are at the mercy of someone else.  Some of you will have a million excuses why this doesn’t apply in your situation.  I am sure there are exceptions but not very many.  If someone is doing something to you (or has done something to you), keeping the focus on them only disempowers you.  Why do that to yourself?   I have been ripped off, fought with, messed around on, and abused in relationships.  It happens (apparently more to some of us than others), but I learned many years ago that when that happens it is NOT the time to give the person even MORE power over you.  They obviously had some at one point, it’s up to you to say no more.

If you want to be and feel empowered then start from where you are.  Don’t think about someone else messing you up.  Maybe they did, but it’s up to you to take back your power and do something new.  Try writing a list of all the things you CAN do.  Then focus on that and start doing them.

This blog post has been a bit of a rant, but I’ve just heard too many things over the past week where people were so very disempowered.  The intention of this blog is NOT to tell you not to trust other people either.  You can trust fully and still take some responsibility for yourself.  Pay attention to your life, practice awareness, double check things, prepare for the weather event if you happen to know it’s coming.  Don’t expect the government to bail you out if you get in a pickle, or when you retire.  You can do this.  It might be slightly out of your comfort zone to take some control over your own life, but it certainly isn’t impossible.

Start now, before something happens.  There is nothing more powerful than to be able to handle yourself in a sticky situation.