Risk and responsibility is a tricky subject, and what it means is often extremely unclear. What amount to take in a given situation is also unclear. Firstly, it must be understood that life, outside of the risks of having a truly random heart attack, getting t-boned by a drunk driver you couldn’t see coming around a wall, and things like that, involves very little inherent risk. Generally, almost everything that matters is controllable. Let’s give an example of how what seems not controllable is in reality: dating.
The actions of your partner, for instance, are not controllable. They never will be. But what matters being who you choose in the sense that you choose a person who does not inherently have bad actions, that is controllable. So while the actions of an individual who is your partner are not controllable, you decide what kind of partner you will have and, by extension, what actions they will take.
“But Whisper”, I hear you say, “The partners with the actions I want don’t want me.”
This is controllable. If you are concerned you do not provide enough financially, fix that – it is very much not hard to get ahead in today’s world. If you do not think you have an attractive body, that is directly related to your actions when it comes to working out and eating (and trust me, it is possible to work out with almost no equipment and eat high protein extremely cheap). If you do not like some of the tendencies you have as a person that turn people away, you can change them. Your personality is not immovable, and it is subject to your conscious efforts to change. I would truly not believe that a person who gets all of these things could not find a quality partner, even if they are on ugly side. People are also much more reasonable than you think, despite what random online propaganda will tell you about trend x/y/z or gender x/y/z’s tendencies. The world is not out to get you.
So the actions your partner takes are on you for choosing a partner and for being able to do so, as is your continued positive treatment of them. Your partner will also mirror you in terms of your emotions a lot of the time, like any human does.
In this sense, you can blame yourself for everything your partner does. Not in the sense of blaming yourself for everything a particular person does, but you can blame yourself for everything your partner does, because you choose who that is. Blame yourself for that.
Let’s move on to another example, and for that let’s use your career, something which is often known to be controllable but not nearly to the degree it is.
You first choose what you do with your time, which determines your skillset. You choose where you live and thus the opportunities available to you with which to apply those skills. You choose how you present yourself to others with the clothing you wear, be that customers at a business or a company you work for. You choose your attitude when you show up. You choose how much you put into work. You choose how you treat your coworkers, and in doing so you choose your reputation. Should something sour this trend at a company, you choose to stay or leave. Should an industry turn foul, you can choose to stay or leave. If your industry dies, and you do not have skills that are useful to anyone, that is because of your choice to not develop them. If you cannot develop them because of social obligations, it is your choice with whom you have surrounded yourself. Should no employers be available, you can freelance your useful talents or even perform general labor, which is always needed. You also have the option to remove the need for money earned from a job through investments, alternative forms of capital such as a garden instead of buying food, and so on. You could move countries, continents, industries, everything. It is all what you choose at all times and it always will be. Blame nobody but yourself for this.
There are benefits to thinking this way. Who do you think will succeed more:
- The person who gets laid off and blames the company or political party of choice and now has nothing to do and the wife he has who depends on him for income because she is raising their three young children at home is upset he is incapable
- The person who gets laid off and just works more at the second job in an entirely different industry they had the entire time while asking themselves what they can do to be more valuable in their original industry who’s wife and kids have no issues because they planned for this
I’ll let you figure out from here why you should blame yourself for absolutely everything in your life. This is not to criticize: It is to grow you.
Keep an ear open,
Whisper