Personal Responsibility
Wisdom is the application of genuine skill in life.
Pursue skills. Work to develop them...to perfect them. Only you (and no one else) can do this for you. Behaving otherwise is like asking someone to practice the piano for you. It's illogical. Who and where you are today is the result (nearly 100%) of the choices you've made previous to this moment. If you don't like what you see, change what's within your grasp—you. If you want tomorrow to be different, you must become different (perhaps even fundamentally), and you must begin today. Take responsibility for every aspect of your life. Drop (and forever abandon) the worn-out story lines of blame-shifting and scapegoating. Instead, tell yourself the truth, and start making different choices based on that truth. You're human, and you've been created with a very unique endowment: The ability to evaluate and choose from multiple moral and practical alternatives and to take responsibility for how your life turns out. You've also been given the ability to forgive (yourself, others, and even God) and to move past failure and discursive self-ridicule.
Wherever you are, take responsibility for it. Own it. You put yourself there, so own it (because it's yours anyway). Yes (and I grant you this), it can be a bitter pill to swallow (especially if you've squandered away much of your life, laid the blame at the feet of anything that's outside you, and are just now realizing it). But, if you swallow it, and let it sink down inside, the medicine it releases (and this is the secret) will lay the groundwork for you becoming different. Why? Because you'll start to look at things differently. Drawing from my own limited experience, when you begin to see things differently, a whole new paradigm of living kicks-in. And it has a cascading effect that's quite marvelous...
When you see things differently, you'll think differently...
And when you think differently, you'll feel differently...
And when you feel differently, you'll respond to things differently...
And when you respond to things differently, you'll behave differently...
And when you behave differently, you'll become different...
And when you become different, everything will change.
And I mean EVERYTHING!
I know the above may feel a bit harsh. While I don't mean to be harsh (just for the sake of being harsh), it's the truth, and sometimes the truth is harsh. There's nothing like the feedback loop of your current reality. It can shatter cherished illusions in an instant. (Here's to disillusionment!)
I'll leave you with something the late Jim Rohn used to say: "Don't wish for an easy life; instead, strive to be better at everything you do. Don't wish for a problem-free life; strive for greater skill in living that life. Don't wish for a life with less challenges; seek rather for an abundance of wisdom and a bursting storehouse of (un)common sense." Amen.
IKIGAI Weekly Blog Schedule (per The Training Trinity):
Mondays: Meditative Prayer
Wednesdays: Holistic Discipline
Fridays: Martial Arts Practice
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