Here’s a simple fact of life: bad things happen to everyone.
You may have lost a loved one. You may have lost your job for no apparent reason. You may have had an accident and be sitting in heaps of medical bills. You may have been cheated on in a relationship. You may have grown up in a household where alcohol, drugs, or abuse created trauma in your life.
While none of these things are your fault, they are still your responsibility.
It really never matters whose fault something is, so we shouldn’t waste time trying to place blame where we think it belongs. That does nothing except cause resentment, sour feelings, and create scapegoats for our own unhappiness.
No matter whose fault something is, it is always the responsibility of those involved.
If my dog knocks over a glass of water sitting on the table, we could argue about whose fault it is. Maybe I shouldn’t have left it sitting in a place where the dog could easily knock it over. Maybe I should have been watching him more closely. Maybe I should’ve trained the dog to watch out for fragile things on the table. Maybe the dog should have just known better.
We can do this with every situation, but it’s a waste of time. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, it’s still my responsibility. I could get angry at the dog, punish him, leave the spilled glass for someone else to clean up, and pout about it all day. Or, I can understand that accidents happen, I can clean up the mess, and move on with my day.
Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by how we handle what happens to us. No matter the circumstances, we are responsible for everything in our lives. Not only do we have the power to interpret events however we want, but we have the power to respond to those events however we want.
Let’s say you grew up in poverty in a single-parent household and your childhood was a daily struggle. You didn’t get to choose to be put into this terrible situation, but you do get to choose how to live with it.
All the time we hear stories of people beating cancer, escaping poverty and abusive households, overcoming adversity to go on and do great things. Do you think those people sat around placing blame on everyone around them for why their life was so bad? Absolutely not. They took the situation for what it was and consciously chose to deal with it the best they could.
Life is like poker—everyone gets dealt a hand, but some are better than others. Someone who is dealt a terrible hand in poker can end up beating someone who was dealt a great hand, simply by making better choices and capitalizing on opportunities. Just like poker, our hands in life can be changed through a series of opportunities and decisions.
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