Accept Responsibility for Your Own Life

It was early spring in Northern Europe. Two brothers, called Chirrup and Spish were born. They were birds. They had a happy childhood. They ate together and slept together. They learned to fly for the first time together. Then their father taught them good places where to hunt worms. Fall came. And then, one day, their father died in a hunting accident, where a cat leaped at him out of a nearby bush as he was fighting a worm. The brothers were decimated.

Winter came near, and the weather grew increasingly cold. Chirrup told Spish: “Come on, we’ve go to travel south, we’ll freeze if we stay here.”
“No, thanks, I’ll be fine right here. I’ve lived here my whole life, there’s no point moving somewhere now.”
“But the winter’s coming!”
“No, I prefer staying here. I know all the hunting spots and hideouts here. I don’t want to travel to unknown lands.”
“Whatever.”

So Chirrup flew south, and Spish eventually froze to death. Because he preferred to stay within his comfort zones, even when circumstances changed. He refused to take responsibility for his own life.

Lots of people refuse to accept the responsibility for their own lives. They go through life in denial, or acting like a victim. (“Why does this always happen to me?”) By doing that they give up any chance for changing their own life for the better. Because that’s the first requirement of self-improvement – accepting responsibility for your own life.

Sure, you don’t control the weather. You can’t accept responsibility for the fact that it rains. (You could technically accept blamee for rain. But you can’t accept responsibility for it. Unless you own one of those airplanes with which you fly above the clouds and drop salt crystals on them to make them rain. But that’s not my point.) You’re not responsible for the rain. But you’re responsible for how you react to the rain.

Do you get angry and upset when rain ruins your plans? Or do you just go “Meh, can’t control the weather.” and then go do something else?

Accept things as they are

A large part of accepting responsibility for your own life is accepting things as they are. If you suck at singing (like me), don’t go around pretending you’re the greatest singer in the world. Accept you suck. Then you have a chance to change it, if you care about it. You could get advice or take singing classes. You definitely wouldn’t allow yourself to take singing classes if you went around pretending your singing is perfect.

That’s the amazing effect of accepting things the way they are. You can start working on changing them. You’ll no longer feel compelled to say “Hey, I’m a great singer. I don’t need to work on it.” I for example suck at improvisation and being spontaneous. I’m often too analytical, too much in my head. I accept it, and I’m working on becoming more spontaneous. I’ll take comedy improv classes as soon as I get a chance.

Imagine a kid who wants to be a doctor. He could either buy a white robe and a stethoscope and go around listening to people’s breath, pretending to be a doctor. Or he could accept that he’s not a doctor yet, and take the necessary steps to get there. Go to college, study medicine, do doctor training, whatever it takes.

Now I’m not saying it’s wrong for a kid to pretend to be a doctor. It’s fine, as long as the kid isn’t using that as a substitute for actually becoming a doctor, if that’s what he really wants. I certainly wouldn’t want to become a professional evil overlord. But I’d bloody well love to dress up in a Darth Vader costume and walk around going… *loud breath in*… *loud breath out* … *loud breath in* “I … am … your … father!”

Are you stuck in the future?

A long time ago, one man lived in small town. When he turned thirty, he grew restless. He told his friends and family: “I am tired of this small town. I want to see new places. I will travel to the end of the world.” They urged him to stay, but he was adamant, so finally they let him go.

He travelled for a long time. He visited exotic countries where fruits were as big as a man’s head, countries where steeds of sheep were counted in thousands, countries with mountains so high that their peaks reached above the clouds. But he was never satisfied. He always grew restless after a few days, and looked longingly at the horizon. Soon he found himself travelling again. The end of the world was much farther than he’d expected, but he was going to reach it.

So he travelled further, and when he reached an ocean, he didn’t even pause to look in awe at the huge mass of water. He immediately searched for a way to keep travelling. He found help from traders in a port, and crossed the ocean.

He travelled for ten ten years, every day looking at the horizon, hoping he would finally reach the end of the world. And then, one sunny spring morning, he thought to himself “This place looks familiar.” He had reached his home town.

He went to his friends and family, and they had a huge celebration of his return. He started telling them of his journey, and only now he realized how many amazing things he’d seen and experienced. He marvelled at how far he’d come. Yet he didn’t even think of that while he was travelling, he was set too firmly on his target, the horizon. He never paused to smell the roses along the road, so to speak.

At that moment, he was enlightened, and spent the rest of his time in this world enjoying every single day as it came.

Like the above man, some people are permanently stuck in the future. Want to feel really bad about yourself? Do this quick exercise: Think of where you would ideally like to be. The skills you would like to have. The people you would like to know. Stuff you would like to own. Imagine it really vividly. (Really, do.) Now look at where you are now. Isn’t that really far from your ideal life? … Dude, you suck!

Ok, now let’s feel good about ourselves. Think of your life one year ago. Who were you back then? What did you know? Realize how far you have come since. How much you have learned, how much you have grown in character. If you’re like me, you’ll be amazed at how far you’ve come in one year.

Now think of what you have now (yet again). Think of all the things you wished for in the past, and have now. A stable job, or a nice wide-screen TV, or someone special in your life. Take a moment to marvel at all the good things in your life. This is something I talked about in my 5 Simple Ways to Increase Your Happiness. Regularly focusing on the good things you have in your life, rather than all the things you don’t have, will make you much happier.

Now I’m not saying you should spend all your time in the present, like a ship without a steering wheel and maps. The past is useful because it contains valuable lessons, and the future is useful because you can plan where you’re heading. But similarly to the man in the above story, getting stuck in the future will only result in you waking up one day, being seventy years old, and realizing you never took the chance to enjoy your life.

You can’t control the past. You can’t directly control the future. Therefore if you accept the responsibility for your own life, you might want to spend more time in the present. Because you can only make changes and decisions in the present moment. You are shaping your future now!

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Random News:

I’m doing the one hundred push-ups challenge. Basically it’s a training program that promises that six weeks from now, I’ll be able to do one hundred good form push-ups in a row. (I can do twenty now). You can check out their website: One hundred pushups.

I’m not 100% convinced I can get to a hundred push-ups in just six weeks. But I’m keeping an open mind. Right now I feel about 80% confident it’s going to work. I’ll post an update on how I’m doing in two weeks.