Taking Responsibility
We look at our lives and say why did that happen to me? The truth is that most things happen to us are created by our own malfunctioning ways. Yes, we can blame God or our parents, spouses, bosses, etc. But if we take just a single minute to look a little beyond the blame we might actually realize we played the most vital role in the malfunction. Once we determine what our role is, we may be able to stop the malfunction from happening again. It isn’t always easy for us to determine how exactly we were involved and there are times, though not many, circumstances happen beyond our control. For example: someone backs into us in a parking lot. Sometimes being at the wrong place at the wrong time does happen. We can consider that an act of God or fate. And please remember we are talking about us, here.
Taking responsibility for oneself, not unfortunate things that happen to our children, parents, or friends that we choose to become actively involved in.
It Works
I will share my lessons but I also encourage you to share your “why the heck did that happen to me?” experiences and I will decipher why I think they happened. Maybe you already know the answer, please share. Maybe my take will be different and may provide you with a little more insight. Maybe you’ll provide me with some insight on my own lessons. Either way, I see it as a win situation. Please remember, when you share give as much information as you possibly can.
My Lesson
My dad is in the hospital….too many ailments to mention. He was pretty out of it. I walked to the other side of his bed to get the T.V. remote and noticed a little yellow pill in a medicine cup that someone had obviously forgotten to give to him. I had already been out to the nurses’ station several times to ask questions (to grill) and decided I was becoming a pain in the ass so I promised myself I would remain quiet for the rest of my visit. But every time I would glance over at the table I kept seeing the little pill.
My rational mind told me, they would come in again and see it; there was no need for me to go back out to the nurses’ station. The nurse came in to change an IV. The aide came in to take is blood pressure. No one noticed the pill. I started to feel guilty. Why couldn’t I just tell them? And here is where I have to mention that although it seems minor, this is a big deal for me because I am very co-dependent and I am always afraid of doing the wrong thing. So when I asked myself why I didn’t have the courage to tell them, I realized several reasons. First and foremost, I didn’t want to get someone in trouble or run the risk of offending either of them. They might think I was telling them they didn’t do their job right and then they might feel bad. I’m sure it wasn’t done intentionally, and if they knew they messed up they might think I was telling them they screwed up, which is really how I would have felt, since I don’t know these women at all. Second, I had been out to the nurses’ station several times already and didn’t want them to think I was a pain in the ass. Who was I protecting? Certainly not my Dad. Myself? Or was protecting the nurse and the nurses’ aid.
Both were very nice women. And I didn’t want to be responsible for making either feel bad. Bingo!!! I didn’t want to be responsible for making either of them feel bad. I was protecting myself. However, if I continued to say nothing I would have gone home and not slept all night because I didn’t speak for my Dad who wasn’t capable for speaking for himself. The next time the nurse came into the room I told her about the pill. She took it very well, by saying, “oh, this is blah blah.” I asked what that was for and she said it was a heart medication. She promptly woke him and gave him the pill. No harm done. At least I don’t think. In the past, I may not have said anything to save her…me from feeling bad. But I would have felt like crap wondering if anyone had ever discovered and given him that damn pill. I was able to go home empty handed…no baggage. As minor as this whole incident seems, its little issue like that cause us the most unnecessary stress. Think about how many times in a day or week you come across those little bad feelings and before you know it they snowball and the next thing you know you’ve downed two bottles of wine or eaten three boxes of cookies and don’t even know why.
