Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Life's Not Fair

"Life's not fair. You see I, I shall never be King. And you, you shall never see the light of another day." -Scar, the Lion King

People always want to complain about how cruelly life has treated them. It’s rare you hear someone say "you know, I should have known better and done differently". Sure, every once in a while life will throw you a curve ball. However, I dare say that 95% of the time, things that happen to you, good or bad, are due to your own actions. As a society we want to blame everyone else for our downfalls, our short comings, or our blatant ignorance.

I have had some pretty bad things happen in my life. For the longest time I would yell at people and carry a grudge on my shoulder, just be mad at the world.

When I was in my early 20s I tried to take my daughter and move to Illinois with my mom. The courts said that I could leave, but my daughter could not. I couldn’t afford my rent, my ex had no job and was violent. Somehow, he and his family convinced a judge that it was not in my daughter’s best interest to leave. I cried for about two hours straight after the judge’s ruling. I went to a friend’s house and I was explaining to her what happened. The tears quit falling. Not that they didn’t want to fall, it was just that I was completely cried out. At that point I looked at my friend and told her that I couldn’t cry anymore. I thought to myself “now I won’t cry anymore”.

That was a turning point for me. At that moment I decided that no matter how much I cried, the facts weren’t going to change. I could throw a pity party all day, every day, or I could get up and do something about it. I began working harder at work, trying to improve myself personally, learned a few new skills and forced a smile on my face. I now have a great job, I own my own home, I pay my bills with no help, and generally speaking, life is good. I still have to force that smile on my face once in a while but who doesn’t?

I guess the point in all this rambling is that if you continue to blame everyone else for things happening to you, you will never be truly successful. So quit blaming the President, your boss, your mom or dad, your husband or wife, other races, other religions, and start taking responsibility for your own life.

No comments:

Post a Comment