My first blog, God help us all!
This is my first attempt at writing a blog, please bare with me.  I’ve thought about blogging for a very long time and wanted to create something useful, fun to read and that would help people. After reading this I hope that you feel I have accomplished my goalsÂ
For a while it’s been my observation that our society is suffering from a lack of personal responsibility. We all want to find someone to blame for our failures and mistakes. I saw on the news today that a girl, who appeared on a reality TV show, is suing for one hundred million dollars because she claims that the show made her out to be a brat. She said that the editing of the show, not her actions, made her out to be a brat. I saw some clips and from what I could tell she certainly didn’t do herself any favors regardless of the editing. She appeared self centered and spoiled with an over  inflated opinion of her abilities. Whether her claims are merited or not I can’t judge but even if true are they worth one hundred million dollars?
This is an example, on a larger scale, of someone not taking responsibility for their actions. She chose to go on the show knowing full well that it would have to be edited and is now upset at the results of her attempt at fifteen minutes of fame and wants to blame the producers instead of herself. On a daily basis we all do the same thing albeit on a smaller scale. We hit the snooze button a couple of times, get to work late and blame the traffic instead of ourselves. I know I shouldn’t have been speeding but that cop was just out to get me. I need to get to the gym but I’m just too busy. These might seen like little things but they add up over time. You’re late to work enough you get fired, get enough speeding tickets and you pay more for insurance or worse you end up with a suspended license. If you don’t take care of your health you find yourself with serious but preventable illnesses such as high blood pressure, diabetes or clogged arteries.
As a nation we expect the government to take care of us, so come retirement we find out we didn’t save enough and social security won’t cover the difference. Or generations of people survive on welfare when with a little effort they could improve their situation. Now we want the government to take care of all our health problems. I am all for helping people who need a hand and the government should help when we have a problem but this should be the exception. We need to take care of ourselves and only turn to help when we have no other choice. I am afraid we are losing this fine point and are expecting others to solve our problems.
This comes back to the point of my blog, to provide useful ideas and information to help us take back control of our lives and achieve as much as we desire with our short time on earth. Being responsible is actually easier and much more rewarding than trying to figure out how to solve the mess that we often find ourselves in when we choose to abdicate our responsibilities to others.
So the first lesson is, stop and think. Whenever you find youself blaming someone or something, stop for a moment. Look back and connect the dots to how you arrived at the present situation. Was there something I did or didn’t do that could have prevented this situation? How could I have acted or what could I have done that might have caused me to avoid this. To many times we rush about and never stop to analyze what it is we are doing. The simple act of stopping for a moment and looking at our actions could give us a whole new perspective on our lives.
When you were a kid did you ever run down a hill and find that you were going so fast you couldn’t stop? This is sometimes how life feels, we have so much to do we don’t feel that we can stop to look at what we are doing or where we are going, when we find out that we made a mistake it is just easier to blame someone than to stop and realize we should maybe make a course correction.
For the next few days take the time to stop periodically put it on your calendar or leave some notes around the house as a reminder, see if what you are doing or not doing might be leading you in the wrong direction. Look at every aspect of your life and see if it is leading you toward the life that you want. Maybe you’ll find that you don’t know what kind of life you want. Then you can begin to take responsibility for your actions, stop blaming others, situations beyond your control or even yourself for your problems take a new direction and move ahead.
In future blogs I will be dealing with a variety of issues that just might help you solve some of life’s little problems. I hope you enjoyed our time together and will come back periodically to see what I’m up to. Until then enjoy your life it’s the only one you get.