Personal Responsibility

If I want to live life to the fullest, I must take personal responsibility for my life and my actions.

Good morning!

Have you ever played Texas Hold ’em Poker?

If you’re familiar with the game, you know that while a great deal of luck is involved (you never quite know what cards you’ll be dealt or what the cards on the table will be), it also is a game of strategy and social skills.

The thing is, no matter what you do, you are always personally responsible for what happens to you in Poker. It doesn’t matter if your opponent even just barely beats your hand; they win, fair and square, and you can’t blame anybody but yourself for continuing to raise the stakes instead of folding right away.

Shifting blame onto others is so easy. “Well, okay, yeah, he won, but only because he made me fold by manipulating me into thinking that he’s got a good hand.” — While yes, manipulation is a real thing that happens (and God in Genesis 3 shows there’s grace for that), we are still responsible for the choices we make. We bring the chips to the table, we choose to make our bets, and we lose our own money, nobody takes it from us.

Even outside of poker, however, it’s so easy to blame others for what happens to us, and we really don’t like taking personal responsibility for what happens to us. Now, don’t get me wrong, I get it, life’s going to throw some curveballs your way, but we shouldn’t think that just because life hit us hard that it isn’t pulling punches on everyone else.

The ancient Stoics believed that we should always determine what actions and consequences lie inside our control, and which ones exist outside of our power to change. Once we have decided or uncovered the boundaries between the two, we should put all of our energy into the realm of what we can change, the variables we are able to manipulate, and not worry so much about the other things.

For example, you can get a AAA membership, you can keep your car regularly maintained, and you can keep your seatbelt fastened, but you cannot prevent a car accident; so, instead of focusing on car accidents and being deathly afraid of them, how about we focus on making sure we have AAA, take care of our cars, and always buckle ourselves in?

Control what you can control, and pray about the rest.

Thanks and God bless, have a great week!

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