The tortoise and the hare

 

People find it easier to blame others than to take responsibility for their own actions.

Life is work. You don't necessarily get paid for the important jobs you do. At least not with money. Parents are expected to take responsibility for raising their children. Not just feeding and housing them, but making sure they are equipped to live in a world that requires much more than money. 

Owning things requires maintaining them. Whether that is hiring someone to do the work, or doing it yourself.

Good Samaritans  who like to volunteer to help others are nice, but it doesn't mean they are off the hook. They are still responsible for their underage children's well being and the maintenance of their possessions. 

It's the old tortoise and hare story over and over again. The hare runs madly around with no plan in mind, like a Mad Hatter,  while the tortoise plods inexorably forward until things are finished. The hare might be more impressive, but the tortoise gets the job done.

In the end the hare loses because he just did not get the job done.

Growth

I am always hearing that I should learn to love myself, treat myself lovingly, embrace who I am. I think that is good advice and I try to get better at those things as I move along.

What I don't hear is that I must continuously strive to grow. Why? Because I will grow no matter what and if I don't do it in conscious ways, I might stray off the path into ways that are counterproductive to my best life.

Getting to know who I am is an ongoing process for me. I know that I love food. It is my go to way of dealing with life, so the past few years I have found comfort foods that don't pack on the pounds or add too many carbs to a body that tends towards being obese and diabetic.

Other people I know find themselves scattered. They start a bunch of things and finish none of them and somehow seem to find this part of themselves adorable. I don't understand that. It seems to me that life would be immensely better for them if they could find some way of teaching themselves to choose smaller projects and refuse to be deterred until each one is done. 

One tiny step at a time. Picking my way across this rocky precipice called life, I choose care over falling. It may not be exhilarating in the moment, but it can be pretty heady in the long run.

Boundaries

 

I cannot tell you how many hours I spent in counseling, or with groups of people searching for my authentic inner self. The pain I felt made these things an integral part of my life for most of my life, but in spite of this I really had the wrong idea about most of it.

I wanted someone or something to blame. I wanted to be vindicated and pitied and have someone make it all better. I was looking for the universal kiss for my boo boos.

Only when I began living alone did I discover that the whole game is really in my ballpark. Oh there is trauma in my past, but blaming wasn't going to make it all better. A child is helpless, but most adults really do have choices.

Choosing to stay in a situation that makes me unhappy is my choice. Albeit the alternatives are sometimes pretty difficult, but there were, and are, alternatives. Blaming it on people, or work, or helplessness does not solve the problem. Is it better to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them? 

The best way I discovered for dealing with my problems is to realize I do not have to accept the way other people treat me as something I earned. It is not gospel. I have to face the truth that I cannot change anyone else either. If they chose to blame their job, or their children, or their situation for their problems and use that to enable their misery, it is their choice. 

I can make other choices and I've gotten better at that over the years. I do not continue to engage in situations, or relationships that are unhealthy now. The exception is family, but even that is done with careful boundaries. Your self inflicted misery is not mine no matter how much I love you.