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Taking ownership of your life
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Victims, all.
That’s what we are nowadays – or at least that’s the way many people think of themselves. And who can blame them? They’re told that by researchers, media, even spouses and kids.
These people even start considering themselves victims – and it’s because they feel like they’re being blown along life’s pathways, like an autumn leaf caught in the wind.
But unlike that dead leaf, you and I have a life – and it’s our life, to do with as we see fit. It doesn’t matter what people try to tell us, or what our past may have been – each of us has the capability and responsibility to take charge of our life and make certain it reaches the right destination.
So many times, we allow ourselves to be acted on by others – as an example, popular media tells us how to live our lives, where to shop, what to buy, even what to think. We have all kinds of people who think they have power over us – and yet ultimately, we have power over ourselves – when you get right down to it, occasional mishaps aside, we can control our own lives – or at least control our attitude toward the things that happen in those lives.
I remember when I signed the papers on our current residence. I signed the papers, and was given the keys to the place. In one fell swoop, the house became my responsibility. Its problems were my problems, its strengths belonged to me. That real estate closing transferred title from the previous owners to my wife and I – with the swish of a pen, we gained ownership.
In our own lives, we don’t have formal closing procedures. We take ownership of our lives in different ways. Among other things, we take ownership by making decisions that improve our lives, by choosing our attitude, no matter what may happen in a day, and by making goals and following through with them.
It’s stupid for someone with so much potential to allow himself or herself to be controlled by other people – and although we all have laws that need to be obeyed and family members that need our respect, we need to remember that for better or worse, our lives are ours to live.
When I bought the house, the first thing I did was to change the locks – signifying our ownership, and locking out whoever else thought they might have rights to the house.
In our own lives, we must take ownership, change our practices, and lock out the others who would try to control our lives. In the ship of our life, we are the navigator, the captain, and the oarsman. We are the people who need to take the responsibility for our own life, and quit allowing others to pull our strings in whatever way they wish.
Copyright, 2008, by Daryl R. Gibson and WeekdayWisdom.com. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the non-commercial redistribution of this document as long as it remains intact with this copyright and all other lines. This license does not extend to the use of this material in a compilation, whether for profit or non-profit use. Join us at http://www.WeekdayWisdom.com.
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