Life doesn’t happen to you. It happens for you. If you’re wondering why your life is in the shape that it is, it’s most likely that you’re waiting for it to happen and you’re blaming someone or something because it’s not.
Always in defense mode, you’re creating excuses or reasons as to why your life isn’t the way you want it to be. “I’ll be happy when ___.” The blank is always filled in with something that is seemingly out of reach, and beyond your control. By filling in the blank, you are blaming someone or something else for keeping you from being happy.
It’s tough, to be honest with yourself, and accept responsibility for the life you’re living. It’s much easier to find external blame instead of questioning the internal reality that feels warm and safe.
Blame is sometimes comfortable in the short term but always toxic in the long term.
I could’ve blamed my father for the problems in my life. Sexual abuse is confusing and painful (both mentally and physically) and something I don’t think anyone can ever truly get over. What he did to my body when I was a child was disgusting. But what he does to my mind, is always up to me and only disgusting if I allow it.
My insecurities, addictions and poor mental health could’ve been blamed on the abuse I endured. Consciously, or unconsciously I could have spent the rest of my life using the pain from my abuse as my way out of a painful life.
But it isn’t.
That was the past, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t change it.
I appreciate everything that happened in my past. If it never happened, I would not be who I am today.
No matter how you look at it, when you try and rectify the past, you are placing blame. It doesn’t matter what happens to you. It matters how you appreciate the experience and resist playing the blame game. When you’re in the blame game, you’ll always lose.
Here are some fundamentals of life that helped me stay away from the blame game and allowed me to understand who I am:
I avoid “Negative Nancies” and “Debbie Downers”
People who always see the negative in life are typically those who live in blame. They are always looking for an audience in which to be heard that will validate their miserable reality. It’s always someone else’s fault.
We are the average of the top five people we associate with. I can’t afford to have any negative people in my life to weigh down my average.
I forgive and understand
If you can’t forgive, then you can’t heal. Forgiveness does not entail forgetting. We can’t learn if we forget. But we always learn if we forgive and understand who this person is. Once I forgave my father for his actions on me, I understood that he too was a man in pain. He chose a different path to run from the pain, and for that reason alone, I’ll never forget what he had done.
My past is the only thing that can’t be changed
Like I’ve mentioned before. Our past is the one thing in life that can never be changed. Like death, our past is the other permanent to life. And it could be said that your past is your life dying. It’s just a death that you can remember.
The actions from my painful past are already dead. I might as well focus on living before they end up killing what’s left of my life.
I accept responsibility for my environment
Your environment is the surroundings that you’ve chosen to lay claim to. The people you associate with, the things you “own,” the job you work at, the income you take home, and the city you live in are all some of the choices that you’ve made.
So, in light of those choices, You’re solely responsible for the energy and life that makes up your reality. My reality is my created environment. Life doesn’t happen to me. It’s happening for me, simply because of the environment that I’ve created.
Blame is the ultimate life hack for those who don’t want to live. It quickly fills in the blanks left empty from the opportunities that you could be living. Opportunities that could leave you living emotionally pain-free and appreciating the past that you’ve already lived. Most importantly, a life without blame is a life without shame.
Is your life happening to you? Or is it happening for you? You don’t need to answer either question, you already know.