About Responsibility
“Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant.”
~ Seneca
I spent a lot of time thinking about the following question:
What is the key difference between successful and unsuccessful people?
I was able to find the answer in my past — in the time of my life when I was a hopeless loser. I had a mentality of a defeated. Well, calling it a mentality would be inaccurate, the word “mentality” implies some sort of organization of thought. At that time there was no organization, only chaos caused by a corrupted idea, primal and raw — its inception was concealed somewhere at a deep animalistic level.
The idea that someone will come to solve my problems.
I was convinced that the reasons behind my depression were external by nature. I was telling myself that I am nothing but a victim of circumstances, and by doing so I made myself one. My thoughts distorted my perception, and therefore my reality.
But one day something changed. It felt like a switch clicked inside me and someone turned on the light — a flash that exposed the root of my misery. Suddenly I realized: there was only one source of my suffering — me. This insight brought me to understanding of what is the principal difference between a victor and a loser.
It’s a decision to take 100% responsibility for his life.
This is the decision that sets apart someone who makes the rules of his life from someone who blindly follows rules created by others. This is the decision that sets apart those who make things happen and those who let things happen to them. This is the decision that distinguishes a master from a slave.
Retrospectively, I see two “me”: there was “me” who was falling down into his own darkness screaming horrified by what the darkness had revealed; then there was “me” who refused to settle, who crawled throw pain, clenching teeth, peeling the layers of ignorance off his sightless eyes, suffering from the scorching light but craving for it. And in between those two versions of myself there was a turning point — a decision to take ultimate responsibility for my life.
I distinguish three crucial levels of responsibility:
- The responsibility for the result.
- The responsibility for freedom.
- The responsibility for the execution.
#1. The responsibility for the result.
Accept the status quo. Your life as you experience it in its totality is utterly and completely your result.
Your reality is 100% your result.
- Your partner or the absence of him/her — your result.
- Your current financial situation — your result.
- Your career, your job, and the level of fulfillment it gives you — your result.
- Your friends, your surroundings, your environments — your result.
- Your relationship with your parents — your result.
- Your car, and all your material possessions — your result.
- The house/the city/the country you live in — your result.
Take full responsibility for your results. Facing your results at this level of responsibility may evoke initial resistance. The discomfort is only natural — your ego refuses to accept the blunt truth. Exercise complete acceptance. It doesn’t matter what you have achieved up to now. What’s done is done. All that matters is what are you going to do from this point forward? Play the hand you were dealt.
#2. The responsibility for freedom.
Understand what the word “freedom” means to you.
Freedom is not the absence of limitations.
It is the excision of the redundant.
“The redundant” we are discussing here is not intended to mean solely material things. A great part of beliefs, desires, and interests people choose to self-identify with serve no purpose. Attachments to earthbound empty of meaning things decrease one’s degrees of freedom.
Many people live their whole lives without ever questioning their model of the world. They don’t take the time to consider the existence of alternative ways of thinking about reality. They never meditate on what their worldview could have been should they abandon valueless components of their self-identity. They are the way the world lets them be.
Ask yourself a question:
To what extent is your self-identity conditioned by the external world?
The more you will think about it, the closer you will come to realization that, as a matter of fact, any type of identification with external decreases your freedom. Inevitably, you will arrive to a conclusion that there can only be one true freedom — a freedom from thought.
Take full responsibility for your degrees of freedom:
- No one will break your bad habits for you.
- No one will cut off the toxic people from your life.
- No one will take out trash from your home.
- No one will take out your mental trash from your consciousness.
You’ve got to do it yourself.
Don’t be afraid to let go of old beliefs. Use the following concept, I call it The Law of Space:
If you want something beautiful to enter your life you have to make space for it.
If you want to have something rebuilt, you have to first have it demolished.
#3. The responsibility for the execution.
Here is one of those harsh truths that will make you a better person:
No one will come to save you.
You either become your own savior or perish.
No third is given.
The change is implemented in cycles. You set a goal, you execute, you get work done, you assess how the result increases your degrees of freedom, you execute again, harder. If you go through these iterations taking 100% responsibility at all stages, your life is always under your control.
I know you’ve been through some rough times. The pain of the heart, the pain of the mind, the pain of the body — you’ve tasted it all. Maybe even right now, as you are reading this, you are going through the storm others know nothing about. Let it all burn, the seed of your rebirth shall be found in the ashes.
Incinerating your weakness is a bitter experience to swallow but it will become your sweetest memory.
Don’t shy away from the vicissitudes of life. Face them and stay undaunted. Cherish the process of getting things the hard way. This is how you anneal your spirit. Toughen up. Only a strong mind can unlock the realm of higher meanings.
“The meaning of life comes with responsibility. The more responsibility you take the more meaning your life has. The higher the degree of responsibility that you agree voluntarily to try to bear the richer your life will be.”
~ Jordan Peterson
Right here, right now, make a decision that from now on everything in your life is your responsibility. Let’s say it together:
I take 100% responsibility for my life.
I take 100% responsibility for the people who wronged me. All relationships are in my head. The way other people treat me is 100% my result.
I take 100% responsibility for the partner I have. The partner I have is 100% my result. I shall never complain. The complications in the relationship reflect my own shortcomings.
I take 100% responsibility for the fact that I don’t have a partner. Being single is 100% my result. Love of my life will never knock on my door. I must actively search.
I take 100% responsibility for the place where I am. My home, my city, the country I live in are 100% my result. I take full responsibility for my living conditions, I understand that they will not change unless I make them change.
I take 100% responsibility for the person I am today. My current state of mind, my body, my spirit, my emotions, my habits, my money — every single aspect of my life is 100% my result. I am the cause and I am the solution.
The decision to take 100% responsibility — that’s what lies between a person and his dreams. Throughout your life, the necessity to make this decision will present itself countless times in different shapes and forms but in its essence, it will always remain the same simple decision: accept or evade, live as a warrior or as a coward.
Fear will come. But there is no shame in fear. Dissect it, scrutinize it, learn from it. You will see that there is always a way to flip your fear and make it serve you.
Let yourself be scared shitless but never let your fears stop you from moving. Indolence will kill you. It doesn’t matter how fast is your progress as long as it is progress. Keep the spirit up and hustle on.
Make no excuses. Your genetics, your parents, your friends, your boss, the government, the society, the culture, the system — none of these defines who you are. You do.
“Remember, the moment you accept total responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you claim the power to change anything in your life.”
~ Hal Elrod
Take total responsibility for your reality. The reality is like clay — it obediently takes up the desired form in the hands of strong-willed and audacious and crumbles in a feeble grasp. You are the potter, you are the vessel, you are the contents. What is that you are molding? The answer is yours to find.
Thank you for reading my book “Meditations of the Millennial”.
If you want to support me on my mission, please, share this book with someone you love. Maybe they will find what they seek on its pages.
