This is a post about greater understanding of ourselves and our actions ( or inactions)... or myself and my actions.
Let me ask you a question: What role do you play in your own life?
Over my years, I've come face to face with times where I felt like I was a victim of my own life, and with each interaction I have become more and more of the person that write this post today- a person who is not a victim and pretty steadfastly refuses to be a victim. But there is an unspoken truth about that state of being... a secret I might never have let on to.
I'm not a victim because I know that being a victim is my own fucking fault.
With increasing regularity, I watch as others feel controlled by their lives instead of the other way around. It's an unsettling feeling, and it leaves the control freak that resides just under my skin itching for an opportunity to smack someone silly.
Listen- I'm a smoker. The cigarettes don't have a hold on me.... I'm not a victim of the tobacco industry. I'm a smoker because I decide every day ( and right now, as a matter of interest) to make bad choices. When I cough tomorrow morning, it'll be MY fault. When my kid does something crappy that makes me unhappy, that's my fault. She's 7... I've been steering the boat for the last 7 years and if it she starts steering the boat in the wrong direction, it's very likely because I've either taught her badly or I wasn't paying enough attention. My boat- my fault. I will post silly things on Facebook about having a shitty day, and it can be true, but the deeper truth is that my shitty days are not heaped onto me like an unshakable burden, they are dosed out to me in equal measure to my inability to handle them or my lack of foresight in preventing them.
This is how a lot of control freaks are, by the way. We control because we don't like shitty days, and the best way to avoid shitty days is to control everything, and the best way to control everything is to blame yourself for not controlling everything. It's a vicious circle..
On to the next question: What role do you play in others lives?
The hundreds of people we come in contact with (in the virtual world mostly these days) on a daily bases, and I wonder if we ever think about the impact we have on them. There is a test for this. It's simply really. If you are standing in a room filled with people and you have a problem with each and every one of them, then the simple truth is that it's not them, it's you.
I try to practice this in my own life. I try not to be the shitty person. When I get angry on the phone ( which I do sometimes) I try to tell the person that I know it's not them I'm angry at. I know they have a job to do and that I'm irritated at the system, not the person. But, I fail sometimes, and sometimes I let the anger get the better of me and I become the bitchy person who is barking out demands.
The other day, there was a bombing on the Gaza Strip. A story that is far too similar to the stories I have been reading stated that Palestine is saying it was Israel, and Israel is saying it was a setup by Palestine to make it look like it was Israel. What's the truth? Hell if I know.....but it brings up an interesting idea.
How far will people go to make the story fit their need to be right?
Someone put a bomb in a public location on the Gaza Strip. That person might have been Israeli... or they may have been Palestinian. Either way, their need to be RIGHT superseded all their need and desire to be GOOD. I wonder how many times a day each of us allows that to happen. My hope is, of course, that it happens with far less consequences than the acts of a terrorist. But I suspect we all drop bombs the we know are wrong with the prevalent intention of being seen as right. And sometimes, we can twist the story so far that we feel justified in that.
My heart hurts tonight because this is my struggle: trying to keep my need to be right in check. In fact, my desire to be right takes me so far that I need to make sacrifices in order to keep it in check. And sometimes it's not clear. Sometimes I have to walk a balance between being humble enough to understand that I can't be dropping metaphorical bombs on people left and right and making sure that I'm not being a doormat. That's a difficult balance... and one area I sincerely struggle with.
But, dear readers, there are a few things that I DO know.
I know that I play a bigger role in my life than I am sometimes comfortable with.
I know that I have the ability to make a series of decisions that lead me to be both right and good, and that is usually without public recognition of either.
I know that sometimes I cannot be trusted to make the right decision....and that if I am tempted, I have the ability to make a decision to stay away from that temptation entirely.
When there is a bigger problem, it is very likely my fault.
There are times where people blame because facing the truth would mean admitting they are wrong.. and that is a fate ( to some) that is worse than death.
Even if my anger is justified, it's never justified enough to clear me of bad acts made by me in trying to justify it.
I think that is all the musings I have for the night. I'll save further thoughts on this struggle for another day.
