Personal Responsibility

This will be my only regular Wednesday post. I am going to make Wednesdays “cliché Wednesdays.” I will take an overused phrase that makes people groan, and explain why it either makes sense, or it makes me want to stab someone in the eye with a rusty spoon. (You could stab someone with a knife but I think a rusty spoon would hurt more, plus it might give them tetanus. Win win). I’m sure I’ll run out of clichés in like two months and start asking people for ideas and use those. Pretty positive there are enough clichés in the world to fuel a blog post every day for a year; once a week shouldn’t be all that difficult. On to the real post now!

I spent a good portion of my life making excuses for why I was where I was. Why I drank. Why I couldn’t get ahead in life. Why I kept having to move back in with my parents time after time because my roommate situations always seemed to be slightly less than optimum. Slightly less than optimum meaning living with junkies, or people who drank even more than I did. It isn’t up until very recently that I looked inward and realized that all of the things that happened to me, I can look at what part I played in them and see how if I’d have responded or reacted differently, life could’ve gotten as good as it is for me now, much sooner.

I have one rule I really try to stick to in life. I am allowed to complain about something three times. The third time complaining about the same thing I have to come up with a remedy as to how to fix whatever it is I’m complaining about. If I have a friend who is constantly late and I complain about it, I have to decide if that’s a fault I’m willing to accept in them. If I am, I need to stop whining about it. If I’m not, I need to tell them I don’t want to be friends with someone who doesn’t value the time of others. It really is that simple. What’s extra special awesome about this rule is seeing someone else’s face when you say to them, “You complain about this a lot. What are you actively doing to fix it?” They really *love* me when I say that. Now, nobody’s perfect and sometimes I’ll find myself being a constant complainer about something and it takes someone else nudging me and reminding me, “Hey, are you complaining about that AGAIN?”

The key is to be able to laugh at yourself when someone calls you on your shit, and realize when you are in the wrong and need to work on stuff. There are so many people that were taught, “Say sorry Johnny” to the point where sorry doesn’t really mean anything anymore. You can say sorry to me all you want, but you know what’s better? Fixing your behavior so that you don’t have to apologize so much. If you never admit you are wrong and truly realize when you’ve done something you shouldn’t have, you will stagnate and never grow. There are so many people who get defensive and pull the, “I didn’t do anything wrong” card. Try and look at it this way: even if you don’t think it’s wrong, but you’ve hurt someone you care about, maybe you could try to work on it anyways. I mean, who wants to continually hurt those they care about?

I know I’m a sarcastic ass sometimes, and I really have to pay attention when someone’s body language or words tell me that something I’ve said or done has crossed a line. I didn’t used to do that. I used to be the, “This is how I am and if you can’t take it eff off” lady. I’m really proud, and blessed, to no longer be that lady.

Oh, and did I mention that every post is going to have a picture of something that makes me happy? Sometimes it’ll be stuff I came across while walking around. But most of the time it’ll be something in my home environment that makes me smile. Yes, sometimes material things really DO make people happy, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

This is a picture I took while walking to work a month or so ago. The colors on that tree totally made my morning.