Take Personal Responsibility

"You must take personal responsibility.
You cannot change the circumstances,
the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself."
- Jim Rohn  


 I have noticed that I can get quite irritated when someone tells me what I must do. It gives me the feeling that I am some how inferior and they must tell me what to do.  In this quote, I focus on the second sentence.  It is reminding me yet again that I can't change many things, not my past, not the seasons, not the wind....however, I do believe I can change my circumstances and myself.  For too many years, I accepted that my circumstances couldn't change.  My health problems seemed permanent.  I felt like my circumstances blew me around like a leaf in fall.  In changing myself, I discovered that my circumstances also change.  Changing myself, changed my perspective of my circumstances.  Changing myself altered how I interact with my circumstances.  Changing myself changes my present and my future.  I cannot change choices made by others but changing myself alters how I interact with them.

Here is a simple example.  For years my mother lectured me on loosing weight.  Please, understand these suggestions, admonitions and nagging started when I was in high school and weighed 125 lbs at 5' 4" tall.  Her obsession with weight colored my relationship with her.  Over the years, I gained quite a bit of weight.  Yes, I did have thyroid problems but I also had poor eating habits.  Over the last 5 months, I worked hard to loose quite a bit of weight.  Yesterday, my mother asked me if I lost weight...I simply replied yes.  She asked me if I felt good and again I responded yes.  I didn't justify, brag, complain, or any of the other things I used to say in an interaction with my mother about my weight.  Her questions became a complete non-issue.  I can't change my mother but the change in myself has forever altered how we interact.  I am taking responsibility for myself.  By changing me, I change everything.