Taking on responsibility over one’s life sucks.
No wonder everyone’s shying away from it.
To be responsible means to move away from being a mere peasant in a bigger scheme and become an independent agent instead. And by doing so, we are also forced to burn away all the deadwood we allowed to surround ourselves with in the past, so we make room for something new.
Something better even?
However, taking responsibility over one’s life is also a voluntary choice.
It has to be.
Since nobody can do it for us.
We have to decide upon ourselves what we are willing to do with our given time, and if we also want to follow through on these impulses. Which is the much harder part, I guess.
However, the additional challenge nobody seems to talk about is to also forget about all the many things everyone else keeps telling us we are supposed to do instead.
Only when we block out all these other voices can we listen to what we want instead. We have to first empty our minds (and sometimes even our current life’s circumstances) so we can start with a new plate.
Which is also the reason nobody’s doing it.
And rightfully so…
Because, well, it sucks.
A Wolf in Sheeps Clothing
It’s painful to remove the falsehood and instead confront the truth that lies underneath. And it’s even worse to look at the fact that we might have wasted the last couple of years in delusion and deception holding on to a false narrative.
Dwelling on the lost time doesn’t help here though.
It’s not a matter of WHEN we do something about it.
But furthermore, IF we do something at all.
When we step into the ring ourselves, and no longer hide behind other people’s opinions and ideas, we can also summon up the power to steer our lives into a different direction.
Well, except we prefer to remain a sheep?
Which, of course, we can do as well. We have our free will after all.
But keep in mind that sheep get pushed around by wolves. And they have no say in where the herd is going.
However, the truth is that we are all wolves in sheep’s clothing at times. Sometimes even the toughest and strongest wolf shies away from his own greatness. We shy away from the exact thing that makes us unique, most often, because we so desperately want to belong.
But why are we trying to fit in anyways?
And what does it serve you to be a wolf among sheep?
A one-eyed man among the blind?
The biggest fish in the midst of a small puddle?
Don’t Sleep and Drive!
It’s in the moments of greatest pain and suffering that the majority of people wish to go back to their mindless slumber. They’d love to outsource their responsibility to someone else. At least until the storm passes them again.
I’m not sure I am ready to wake up either.
It’s comfy and warm in the cozy bed we made for ourselves over all those years. And it’s super disturbing to be responsible for EVERYTHING that happens in one’s life, and especially so when everything seems to go downhill.
I mean, is it even adviseable or healthy to feel responsible for all the random things that seem to happen in life?
If I get hit by a car today, is that really my fault?
And should my “responsibility” even go that far or am I overdoing it here?
In some weird sense, at least to some degree, I know that if something terrible happens in my life, it’s also (partly) my own fault. I probably could have done a million things differently to not end up at this very spot in which a car runs me over and ends my life.
But what if I couldn’t have changed a thing about it no matter how hard I’d try? Is it then still helpful to feel resentful and bitter about whatever has happened, or whatever I did, or didn’t do?
Or is my refusal to accept full ownership over my life simply a clever excuse to remain a mindless sheep?
The Burden of Choice
Because most often though, it’s not about avoiding all the terrible events that might cause us harm, but instead to own up to the consequences and accept them as such.
It’s a state in which we don’t express additional resistance to what already is. And instead, enter a “zen-like” state in which we take in whatever is thrown our way and then deal with it with the responsibility and care it demands of us in any given moment.
We all know what it feels like to do the right thing.
Our consciousness somehow always guides us toward this “ideal.”
But it’s our free will to follow through on these impulses or not. We can happily ignore it. However, what usually happens in life then is that we pay the price for it later anyways.
We all know these situations in which we look at a decision that lies right in front of us, and we someone know what we need to do.
That’s where our consciousness comes into play.
It tells us PRECISELY where we are supposed to go for ultimate growth and meaning. Or maybe even when we need to run to avoid pain and suffering?
The problem is that sometimes we don’t feel ready to walk this path it points us to, and then we give in in forms of a “sheep-like” weakness.
When we feel overwhelmed by the burden of living (or the burden of choice?), we’d rather prefer to be a cog in the machine again.
I think about this a lot.
With each new day we also have a new chance to make the “right” decision. Whatever “right” might mean to us at any given day.
Our consciousness tries so hard to guide us toward where we somehow already know we need to be heading. And still, it’s our free will to decide if we want to follow through on it or not.
I guess the older you get the more you realize that in the end there are no alternatives to this question anyways. Do you want your life to be better or worse? Do you want to suffer unnecessarily or push toward making the most out of it despite the struggle?
No one really wants to live in hell.
But sometimes we are just too scared to envision a world in which things might turn out for the better for us too.
It’s not easy to subscribe to the belief of a brighter future, especially when the present is dark and grim. But we are all naturally driven toward it nonetheless. We want things to be better. We want to aim at the ideal. Sometimes, in an honest moment, we might even feel like we are worthy of becoming this ideal ourselves.
Either way, we have a choice.
We always had.
A Simple Promise?
Today I sat down and wrote my daily words.
I didn’t feel like doing. I felt more like playing video games. But even as I “preferred” to play and occupy myself with meaningless nonsense, I also couldn’t help but notice the voice that was whispering from within.
There was a voice that tried to tell me that there’s always a choice.
I, and everyone else as well, always have the option to switch things up for the better. To work toward a higher (and maybe even “nobler”) goal.
I don’t know what made me sit down and write in the end though. The temptations were tempting after all.
But I guess what helped me today was that I promised myself I would the day before. I gave myself a little promise that I would do it no matter what. And then, because I am weird like that, I tied my whole self-worth and self-respect to this little promise as well.
Now I am close to finishing my day’s work and I see how I gained a little bit of that self-respect back (and maybe even a bit extra).
Because I simply did what I told myself I would do!
And that made me realize that I can indeed be in charge of my own decisions and actions. I can move into a different direction than the one my life is currently aiming at.
And if I am persistent (and maybe even a bit lucky), I might as well turn this thing around!
