taking responsibility

- a recent theme in my life

and i realize it applies to all arenas: work, home, relationships

in short: own up to actions, play fair, make right.

in long: somehow thinking about it has boiled down to this conclusion that we are responsible for our own feelings. as much as other people's behaviors and actions impact the way we feel, in the end, we will feel the way we want to feel. we dictate our emotions. we can control the way we react to others' actions that we, naturally, have no control over.

this is not to say that we should never feel sad or mad or disappointed. but we can consciously make that choice to dwell upon such feelings. we can observe that something has been done to us that we feel is not right, but we need not blame the other. even if somebody acted with malice, must we take it personally? can we go beyond it and not let this uncontrollable action ruin our peace?

i used to find myself upset with the behavior of others when they inadvertently or purposefully made me feel bad. however, instead of trying to understand why someone acted a certain way, we should turn into our selves and understand that another person ought not have control of our feelings. why should we submit control of our emotions to someone else who may not be worthy of our emotions? why allow ourselves to seethe with anger when that leaks into other areas of our lives and not at the cause of it?

to have control over our own sentiments is self-empowerment. we take responsibility for our actions first. i find that this method allows one to be much more rational in making good choices.

and when we realize we have inadvertently caused someone else to feel bad, we can take responsibility of that. we can own up to what we have done without accepting blame or feeling guilty. we can acknowledge how our actions have been perceived, perhaps wrongly, but what negative feelings we have elicited in another. we can try our best to explain what we believe happened and our (not good nor bad) intentions, and that is all we can do.

we need not grovel for forgiveness. we need not apologize for something that we did not do on purpose.

when we feel bad, we need to try to distinguish between true malice and miscommunication, amongst other things that could have gone awry. blame is for the lazy. we only need to look within ourselves to find forgiveness and understanding.

taking responsibility feels good.