Do you still blame your situation on circumstances beyond your control? I do. All the time. And I know I need to stop. I know it solves nothing. I know it leads nowhere.
It is so easy to blame your problems on things outside yourself. It is so tempting to offload all of that responsibility onto something else, especially if you feel or know within your heart it is justified. However, what purpose does this serve? Does it mean that by blaming others or something else, we can work through or even solve those problems?
When we think about accountability, we often times, think in terms of someone else. It is hard for many of us to separate our feelings from fact and see that we may have a lot of responsibility for the undesirable seasons we find ourselves in. When the wound is fresh and we are blinded by the pain of a particular situation we ignore the fact that the vehicle that carried us to where we are, are based on the decisions and choices that we made. Yes, those behind it may be evil, wicked people, but did we know that they were evil, wicked people going in? Did we know we were entering blindly, lacking the proper wisdom and knowledge and still went in? Did we know that we were starting something that held no guarantee, but we did it anyway. Now we are devastated because the results do not match our expectations – even if we knew those expectations were baseless.
Yes, there are times when really, things just happen and we have to roll with the punches and make the best of a bad situation. On the other hand, what we choose to do after the unexpected, may require us to take some if not all of the blame for the way things turned out. Things happen, all the time, but how we react to those things is a choice we make, whether it takes an eternity or a split second to make that choice. At the end of the day it was a choice that we made. There is no going back from it and there is no hiding from it either.
Can we take accountability fully and stop watching as things fall a part? When we see things are not working out, whether with a project we are working on, a relationship, job or friendship, we may need to step into solution mode and stop blaming everything around us. Do you know someone who seems to never get along with anyone, never fit in anywhere and can never do anything right? Maybe we check those boxes? Well at what point does it become a matter of that person taking a good look internally, and not what others have done or not done, not focusing on what opportunities were given or not given, but at what that person did or not do, believe or not believe assumed or not assumed? Unless there are perfect persons walking here on earth, then at some point the continuous valley season some of us experience may more than likely have something to do with what we are doing or not doing.
Accountability is necessary. It is important to hold others accountable but it is more important in solving our own problems, to make sure that we are holding ourselves accountable. So no excuses, do not fall in the trap of being a bystander in your own life, take accountability, know what you are about, take back your power and do what is needed to write your story in the way you see fit.
