I’ve been thinking a lot lately about personal responsibility.

The idea that not only do we get to choose how we show up in the world, but we also get to choose how we want to live.  Unless everything is predetermined.  But that’s a whole different conversation.

I spend most of my days existing in the world in a way that does a couple things – allows me to be as comfortable as possible (health-wise, in our home, etc) and allows me to fall asleep at night feeling at peace with who I am, what I did/said/acted upon/put out into the world.  I’ve spent so much time in the past few years reading philosophy and religion (and everything in between and around) and there is obviously no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to be.

Every time I start to get frustrated (for various reasons, but currently due to the opposing positions that my in-laws and I take on pretty much everything) I remind myself that all the things I’m wondering — how do they sleep, how do they feel okay with the way they behaved, etc etc – is because they frame their lives, their interactions and their opinions within a completely different framework than I do.  Like most of us (myself included) they are the heroes of their story.  So even though they are not heroes to me —and from their point of view, I’m the villain- their belief would be that they are behaving in the correct way and everyone else is incorrect/rude/wrong.  So we are stuck at odds, believing totally different things but also NOT believing totally different things (morals, etc)  just framing them and interpreting them completely differently.

I don’t know that they spend any time considering my position in the same way I consider theirs but …. perhaps they do.  I just don’t know.

I find my heart full of angst and my brain full of frustrated questions about how they can possibly put themselves into the world in the ways in which they do, only to circle around to the fact that they do no believe they are doing anything harmful, but rather that harm is being done to them.

I could not imagine myself not taking responsibility for myself, for my own personal well-being, for my safety and for my understanding.  I just … I don’t understand.  It makes me work hard to not only comprehend, but have compassion.

Xox, g