Addendum to previous post

[featherynscale]

I have a hard time believing in absolutes. I think that I live in a very large and complex system, in which very little, possibly nothing, happens for one reason only, or because of one actor only. The first thing I was taught about marriage/couples therapy is that nothing is exclusively the fault of one party, and that's a system consisting of only two primary actors. I don't believe that you can control everything that happens in your life, make everything that you do or are involved in strictly by your will.

I do, however, believe that you can reduce the number of things that "happen to you" and increase the number of things that you "cause to happen". Yeah, things will still "happen to you", good and bad, no matter how mindful of your actions and your environment you become. Things will still backfire, or work out in some way you hadn't anticipated. But I think that you can improve your lot in life in a number of ways by being more responsible for yourself, thinking about the possible consequences of your actions and making measured decisions.

I've seen this work more times than I can count. I've seen people begin the climb out of depression by shifting their perceptions from "I can't do anything to lie on the couch" to "I have chosen to lie on the couch today", and a thousand other iterations on the same sort of theme. Maybe you can't make everything work out the way you think it should, but you can damned well try.

Comments

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

I have worked with people with behavioral issues (violence, addiction etc) for over a decade in that time I changed none of their behaviors. I did, however, happen to provide avenues for change to those truly interested and active about change. Much of the bad "shit" in their life remained while they changed and sometimes after but their lives were always better because of their attitudes.

As response to prior rape/abuse: if you put yourself in certain situations or present a certain way you change the likelihood that things will happen to you, both good and bad. Do you deserve them? I can't answer that question and think it is a biased question anyway. We far more frequently talk about someone not deserving bad things and deserving good things (caveat: for someone we are jealous of the reverse applies). Things happen getting into whether or not it was deserved obscures the fact that it happened and it is time to move on.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Does it sound like I am trying to take credit for other people's changes? That's not cool - I do not in any way mean to imply that. You change yourself, that seems to be the only way it works.

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

Actually no it didn't sound like that at all. I am in concordance with you on this, and was offering a different angle on the issue.

[kcwitch.livejournal.com]

i totally get what you are talking about. the thing i keep telling my kids all the time is that life is about choice.
take kristi for example. bad shit just seems to happen to her all the time but i view 90% of it as being her own fault. of course she views 100% of it being someone else's fault.
the way i see it she has a choice. she is on probation right now, so is her bf. they are therefore not allowed to associate with each other let alone live together, yet they still choose to live together. so when she gets put into prison because of violation of probation it would be her fault for making that choice. one would think that is so but of course it will be because her PO is stupid and mean.
she loses her job because she was a slacker and called in all the time it is because her boss or the job was stupid. the car broke down because they didn't maintain it the car was stupid because it broke down. i think what i am trying to say is that it is all down to a person taking responsibility for their own actions and reactions. i grew up in an abusive household, moved on to marrying an abusive husband. i didn't just lay down and take it (well, not after awhile anyway) i made the choice to do something about it and get the hell out of dodge so to speak. i could have ended up like my brother who has been in and out of jail and blames our family life for all his problems and the reason why he keeps doing the stupid shit he does but i don't. why? because when crap happened to me i stepped back and took a good, hard look at what i might have done to cause that issue. now i am not saying that it was my fault that i was raped and beaten but i am also not going to blame me bouncing a check on that fact. that would be insane. because my mother would often tell me to shut up and that i was stupid and talked too damn much that doesn't give me the right to think it is ok to behave badly in a social situation, etc... so yeah, life is what you choose it to be. you can choose to be happy (for the most part) or you can choose to be depressed, ultimately the choice is yours to make. not in all cases mind you...but you know what i mean. well, i know what i mean anyway.