A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
John Burroughs
You have to take ownership of your life. All of it. The good, the bad, the memorable and the forgettable. Chasing your dreams requires a very deep honesty and the courage to blame nobody else but yourself when things don’t go the way they were supposed to.
But I know. There is this reason, and that reason. This person should have done this, and if only that person had done that. If I had better behaved kids, I would have more time. If I had a more supporting partner, I would have more confidence. And if I had a better accountant, I would stress about money so much.
No matter how valid or true those statements may be, that doesn’t change the fact that you are at the centre of everything and when you’re at the centre none of that matters. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to do something great and trying to become better.
Failure in life is inevitable. It is very predictable even. How did we ever get the idea that we could get it right the first time, when the universe is infinitely old and things take a very long time to become what they are meant to be? Failure should be a common place even in our lives. Nothing we should be surprised by and certainly nothing we should feel ashamed of or distracted by.
Most of all, the courage and wisdom to take responsibility for absolutely everything in your life is the foundation on which you’ll build your desires. You have to own your shit. Totally. Unequivocally. Absolutely.
Only then will you get on with the business of finding out what went wrong and fixing what is broken. It won’t be easy. Changing yourself and influencing others take a tremendous amount of will and persistence, but the alternative to blame fate, or God, or other people, serves you no good, and imprisons you, robbing you of time and opportunity.
Time you could have spent actually doing something about your dreams. Time to learn, mend, and adjust your course. Opportunity to seek help and get on with things.
Blaming others for anything in your life shackles you and pulls you in a direction you don’t want to go. Worse, when you finally sober up (and everyone always sobers up), you will have a long way to go to where you were, and you’ll have regret of where you could have been if you could have just done and be what you needed to do and be.
It’s your life. Everything will not go your way. You’ll stumble and fall, again and again, but don’t lay there hurt, cursing your shoes and a rock that played there long before you thought of taking a walk. Don’t waste your thoughts and your breath on futile, agonizing feeling of hatred. Turn that pain and disappointment into something useful. See it as an opportunity. A mistake you never have to make again.
Look up. Never look down.
