My read in this book this morning was I think my favorite so far, and that is saying something. Plus it was in a section that I was struggling a bit with.
Why is that? Well, a few years ago I really got into New Age thinking, the idea that what you think about comes about and you are responsible for everything that happens in your life. To the extent that if a hurricane happens, it's your fault, you thought it so you created it. I have even seen some go as far as to blame starving children in undeveloped countries on my thinking. What total bullshit! So this section of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is on personal responsibility and I was like yeah, this is pretty good, but it's not my fault if some crazy somewhere shoots up a school. Then Mark broke it down. He broke down the difference between responsibility and fault, which New Age thinking doesn't do. Basically, even if something is not our fault, if we had absolutely nothing to do with it, we are still responsible for the effect it has in our life. I thought his example of that using judges showed the difference between responsibility and fault very well. "Judges don't get to choose their cases. When a case goes to court, the judge assigned to it did not commit the crime, was not a witness to the crime, and was not affected by the crime, but he or she is still responsible for the crime. The judge must then choose the consequences; he or she must identify the metric against which the crime will be measured and make sure the chosen metric is carried out" We all have to deal with things that aren't our fault all the time, that's life, so suck it up buttercup because how you deal with those things, how you let them affect your life, that IS YOUR responsibility. You choose how you see and react to things, even though you did not choose, and are not to blame for the things. I'll wrap it up with Mark's words again; "We all love to take responsibility for success and happiness. Hell, we often fight over who gets to be responsible for success and happiness. But taking responsibility for our problems is far more important, because that's where real learning comes from. That's where the real-life improvement comes from. To simply blame others is only to hurt yourself." Wise words, thanks, Mark.
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