Tag: ownyourlife

  • You cannot make them rise

    You cannot make them rise

    I’ve seen, and experienced first hand, the disaster that awaits when we convince ourselves that the demons that others deal with is our responsibility to resolve.

    Being kind, compassionate, and even understanding does not mean that we must own the decisions that others have made, especially when those decisions include them choosing to hold on to anger from their past instead of embracing the opportunities of the future.

    Remember that you can only offer someone a hand up, you cannot make them rise.

    The same way that you must own the consequences of your decisions, you are responsible for giving them every opportunity to own theirs.

    That includes not making yourself available as a doormat to them when they’re not owning it.

    You’re not a hospital for the wounded egos of others.

    Compassion doesn’t mean that you must be a martyr.

    Sacrificing yourself to uplift another not only reflects ingratitude on your part for who you are and what you have, it denies your contribution of love to those that have a right to it, including yourself.

    Moderation in everything, and everything in moderation.

    Embrace your life fully, not only its struggles.

  • The past sucks eggs

    The past sucks eggs

    Life sucks when we take our experiences with others from the past and project it onto the relationship that we have with someone in our present.

    Sadly, this applies to all relationships, not just marriage or romantic partnerships.

    It applies to the parent-child relationship as much as it applies to spouses.

    Especially in times when we have a high prevalence of failed marriages, this plays out in the aftermath of such breakdowns of the home as children grapple with their place between their separated parents, and ex-spouses struggle to find a balance of power in their efforts to co-parent.

    A lot of life is wasted as we rage about what we believe to be our justified anger at what happened in the past.

    Sometimes, we’re so convinced that we have good reason to rage at what is happening in the present that we don’t notice that it is because of a past experience that the present one incites such rage within us.

    The focus should never only be on why we have reason to be angry or to feel hurt.

    More importantly, we must focus on whether the intensity of rage or hurt is understandable relative to the current situation.

    When we do this, we stand a chance of focusing on resolving the current problem rather than contaminating it further because of how it reminds us of how we were treated badly in the past.

    If you don’t own your contribution towards the current problems that you face, you will be owned by the demons of someone else’s past.

    It always starts with you.


  • You cannot not have expectations

    You cannot not have expectations

    The advice to live life without expectations to avoid disappointment is disturbingly misleading.

    If you’re striving to achieve this state of having no expectations of anyone, please stop.

    When we convince ourselves that we should not expect anything from others, we also have to convince ourselves that they should not expect anything from us.

    If that’s who you want to be, then prepare yourself for an isolated and lonely life where you are singularly responsible for everything that you want or need.

    Any rational person knows that it’s impossible to live that way.

    Expectations are fundamental to a healthy relationship.

    Without it, there is no need for trust or loyalty because we expect nothing from anyone, so they’re all free to do as they please, right?

    What cements a relationship is trusting that you can expect a significant other to show up for you the way that you need.

    What convinces us of our worth to others is when they take comfort from knowing that we’re there for them. That’s an expectation that they have of us.

    Focusing on not having expectations is a defence mechanism in response to having had our trust betrayed by someone close to us.

    It’s an attempt to protect ourselves from ever being hurt that way again, resulting in us hurting others who had nothing to do with that betrayal.

    If you don’t resolve that problem of how and why you felt betrayed, because betrayal is very often how we feel about someone’s behaviour rather than them actively trying to betray us, you will create a whole lot of new problems that you never intended to create.

    By all means, be selective about who you expect things from in the same way that you shouldn’t trust every person that crosses your path.

    Trust is earned, while respect is a reflection of who you are.

    Confuse the two, or assume they’re the same, and life will become very complicated and onerous.

    Don’t take advice from memes. Rather consider it as a point of reflection before acting on it.

  • A peaceful fight

    A peaceful fight

    Insanity is subjective.

    So is truth.

    The less we remember this, the more likely it is that we will oppress.

    To pass judgement without understanding reflects our insanity.

    To restrain judgement until we reach understanding reflects our search for truth.

    These two positions define the efforts of our days and the contemplations of our nights.

    And mindfulness is lost between the two.

    Striking a balance becomes the true pursuit of life if we hope to taste peace.

    But balance is only achievable if we know how much of each is valuable as our days progress.

    The enemy of mindfulness is distraction.

    The friend of mindfulness is therefore being consciously purposeful.

    You may not always be able to rein in your thoughts, but you can make a habit of reflecting, in the moment, if you are being purposeful regarding your objective.

    Live consciously and purposefully, and life will be woven into a relatively peaceful tapestry without fighting for peace.

    Sometimes, it’s the fight that denies us the peace that we yearn, while we yearn for peace as we fight.

    Pause.

    Choose your battles.

    Or else you’ll always be at war, blaming others for the choices that you make.

    And remember, if you’re trying to be mindful, you’re distracted.


  • The meandering twists of fate

    The meandering twists of fate

    Betrayal is not always a result of harsh words, lies, or cruel action.

    We’re often so focused on what we’re not getting from others, that we don’t pause to consider what they may not be getting from us either.

    The deepest cuts are those that are inflicted when we trust someone to be there, but they walk away instead.

    It’s when our rock in this world goes silent when we desperately need to hear their comforting voice.

    The searing edge of the blade of betrayal is when we repeatedly make excuses for others failing us, but we’re discarded the moment we have a moment of weakness.

    When there is inaction from those towards whom we look expectantly while recalling the times that they drew on our energy in moments when we barely had enough to sustain our own spirit, we find ourselves holding on, desperately clawing with both hands, to the remnants of the shards of our broken spirit, knowing that only we will be there for us, with the only solace needed being our trust in the One who created us.

    People fail us for the same reasons that we may fail others.

    It doesn’t make it right.

    It doesn’t make it wrong.

    It makes us all flawed humans who sometimes succumb to the demons of the past, while oblivious to the demons we just spawned in another because we were distracted.

    Striking a balance between recognising their humanness, while allowing ourselves to be human, while protecting ourselves from the impact of their demons, while grappling with our own demons is what defines the struggle of life, and the devastating risk of love.

    But we do it anyway, because without it, what would be the point of life?

    reflection

  • The demon child of ingratitude

    The demon child of ingratitude

    Disrespect only ever becomes an option when we disrespect ourselves.

    We don’t always disrespect ourselves because life is fluid, demanding different things from us at different times.

    In those moments when we are expected to be more than we believe we’re capable of, or when we are corrected for something that we do because we want it without consideration for its consequences on others or ourselves, or when we demand privileges without fulfilling our responsibilities – it is then that we lose our composure and respond in ways that undermine others.

    Disrespect is a form of anger and is a tool to achieve something without earning it.

    Others may experience it as arrogance or narcissistic behaviour, but at the core of it, it’s an insecurity spawned by ingratitude.

    Ingratitude sets in when we focus on everything that we want while diminishing the value of everything that we have.

    It’s at the heart of a vicious cycle that begins with the anger or hurt that we feel about an unfortunate or unpleasant life event, which stirs a rage within us that drives us to want to claim our dues from the world rather than earn it.

    Ingratitude fixates our gaze on risks and threats to our significance, rather than allowing us to focus on the opportunities that present themselves for us to achieve so much more than what we desire.

    Anger is the distraction that justifies disrespect, and disrespect is our perceived tool for justice that distracts us from our ingratitude.

    Few are willing to admit to being ungrateful.

    The rest are too busy justifying their bad behaviour because of how they were treated badly by others, while growing oblivious to how they become just like, if not worse, than those who treated them badly.

    Thus, the vicious cycle of harshness and ingratitude is maintained.

    It always starts with you.

    Do you respect yourself enough to be grateful for who you are and the life that you have?





  • Embrace your demons

    Embrace your demons

    Relationships fail when the demons of both don’t play nicely with each other.

    But demons are not so easy to recognise.

    What feels like a right or a legitimate expectation is often underpinned by a demon from the past when those rights were denied, or those expectations dismissed.

    Our innate need to be of significance to those we deem significant stir the demons within when that significance comes under threat.

    It gets ever more complicated when the demon is associated with what comes next, and not what is.

    Consider this.

    Those who play it safe in life are protecting themselves from failure or inadequacy.

    What they’re focused on may appear to be their absolute priority, and may even feel like it is their priority to them, without realising that what they’re focused on is to protect them from what it may lead to next.

    That’s how success becomes a threat, or emotional availability feels like intense vulnerability.

    The fear of abandonment means that we must protect ourselves from growing attached, or the fear of rejection means that we must preemptively reject before we’re rejected.

    Thus, self-sabotage leads to self-fulfilling prophecies that convince our demons that we were right to protect ourselves from a threat that no one else understands.

    That’s how our demons from the past ruin the promise of a beautiful future.

    If you don’t own your demons, your demons own you.

    It always starts with you.

  • Surviving sucks

    Surviving sucks

    I see too many people take pride in being a survivor, which in itself is not the biggest problem.

    The problem arises when that act of survival defines you for the rest of your life.

    When a traumatic event, or an abusive relationship, defines you beyond the immediate impact of experiencing it, you keep it relevant long after its occurrence.

    We surrender our lives to the efforts of survival when we lose sight of our ability to change our circumstances as we wait for change to arrive.

    What’s worse is that we don’t realise that those who are not showing up for us are likely in survival mode themselves.

    That’s how we do to others what has been done to us without realising that we’re part of that cycle.

    While we’re ‘surviving’ or waiting, those who have rights over us to show up for them as fully formed humans are denied the experience of feeling significant because we treat them as duty.

    But, more important than this, it’s not their ignored rights that is the greatest oppression.

    Taking for granted our ability to create ease and joy despite our backdrop of struggles is the worst oppression against ourselves.

    That’s the greatest loss of all.

    Nothing compares to the loss of opportunity to contribute towards the sweetness of life for yourself and for others.

    Not even death compares, because in death there is no life waiting to be lived.

    In death there is no need to create joy or to experience the wonderment of life.

    Yet so many yearn for death because of a tormenting moment from the past, while discarding their ability to create joy because of the horrors caused by troubled souls.

    That’s how we become equally troubled and repeat their mistakes in our own unique way while lamenting the burden of existence, forgetting that we gave up on life itself.

    Regret and sorrow has its place only as long as it spurs us into action, otherwise it ceases to be about what happened to us and becomes an indulgence of self-pity because we need our struggle to be appreciated.