An Escape from Blame

As I mentioned in my previous article, passing on through it, humans don't like to take blame. If something happened; either close by or far away, we let it happen one way or another. In fairness, before you all attack me, there are some things far away we can not really do anything about due to distance or circumstance but, in today's Age of Information of everything is shareable, tweetable and so forth, as Obama started, we can continue in saying "Yes! We can!".

Let us step backwards one moment though and come back from saving the world to beginning where what makes such a thing possible is begun. Let's begin with this thought;

"Everything which ever happened to you is your fault"

Think about that for a moment, digest it, mull it over. Now argue with me! That's right, you do not have control over what other people choose to do, how they are, the things they do. You are right but you can control how you react to those circumstances. I know this is going to be a tough article because it is one which is most likely to upset a lot of people for a number of simple reasons. There are some things which we genuinely feel we cannot control but ask yourself to consider these scenarios first;

A friend of mine was brutally and horribly raped. I cannot even come close to imagining what that is like. Nothing I have lived can give me true understanding of what she went through. This same woman founded a local charity for helping other victims of rape move past the guilt, the suffering, the hate and rebuild their lives.

Another woman I know lost her husband of 40 years to cancer, she now fights for cancer research to be better funded and recognised.

A man who lost both of his legs climbs Mount Everest.

Alright; these are extremes but it does not change one simple fact; it is me who decides how I shape my future and how I look at myself. Look at this, I was in a long series of terrible, bad and downright awful relationships, ending with the one I left the US because of. She was controlling, abusive, nasty, hateful and all that stuff; mentally and physically abusive. I let her be. Here's the thing, I read a while ago letters and emails and cards I had written to her, missives to myself as part of my therapy and my first thought was this "what a spineless little worm!" but this obvious invertebrate was me! I allowed her to control me and I allowed her to get away with all that I did. I did then and always do decide what happens to me and what I deserved. The day I decided that I deserved better was the day that I left No-one could make that decision for me but me.

So why, Alan the image from Atlanta's Martin Luther King Museum clearly displaying the struggle for racial equality? Is this an article about personal struggle or a large struggle? Are they that different really? I experience what I allow, we experience what we allow. Surely you cannot say black people are responsible for what white people did to them? In part yes they are. Why? Fear. Everyone fears to be the first to stand up and go against the flow, the status quo, the very tide itself. Ms. Rosa Parkes refused to move on a bus and they beat her. MLK refused to accept the status quo and they killed him. Various black and white people refused to accept division in the world and were harmed, beaten,. even killed for their refusal. Their resistance changed the world and, like that single stone they started the avalanche! By refusing to be beaten they gave courage to everyone else and the movement was begun! So, MLK, Rosa Parkes, Malcolm X and others decided to NOT let things just happen to them and look what they began! After they started others followed. Jim Crow was destroyed, a black man became president, the N word is no longer acceptable. Why did no-one rise up before? They were surely afraid, they would be singled out and they and their family punished and even killed. It remained that way until along came someone for whom ideals, justice, RIGHT were more important than life itself. Such people are indeed rare and, while I say this I ask myself; would I be one to stand up in the face of tyranny knowing my life is forfeit no matter what I do? Knowing my wife and kids could be harmed because of what I say or do? I truly do not know there but I hope so.

But it boils down to this and I will ask you simply; what are you prepared to allow yourself to endure? What do you deserve to suffer? Can you end your suffering or make it matter?

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