The Path to Personal Responsibility

Let's face it: I've been running, and running hard. Running is my natural response to conflict. I'm stubborn and strong, but I don't face trouble head-on very often. Instead, I like to run and hide. There's nothing more comforting to me right now than the feeling of being in motion. Planes, trains, and automobiles have been my best friends for months.

Growing up, and healing, seem to both be in part about accepting your true nature and embracing it rather than fighting with it. After all, the dark side of me runs from trouble, but the lighter side of me gives people the benefit of the doubt long past when others would have given up and fought them down. Our weaknesses are also our strengths, is that not the case?

But the truth is that I run, and yet eventually the problems catch me up and I have to face the consequences of my choices. Divorce is painful, and so is career transition, and I've got both on my plate at the moment, and both of those things stem from decisions that I made and actions that I took, or didn't take, in the past. I see the consequences in the eyes of my kids almost every day. Some things even I can't run away from.

We've been watching kids movies together, and I believe it's not at all coincidental that a lot of kids stories are based on the loss of one or both parents. It's a constant reminder for me right now of the choices I've made- for good reasons or not- and I'm still asking myself, "What now?" How do I get myself through this time, much less my children, who have no choice but to sail along in the same boat with me?

There's no easy answer. But here's the thread that I'm tugging on, from the World Domination Summit and other places: somehow the path back to happiness lies in taking responsibility. I've run from it because it had become such an iron cage gripping my life, from all sides and all directions. I just wanted to be free. But I know deep in my gut that the path to real, true freedom lies in somehow facing the consequences of the past and accepting responsibility for my future responses to them. There's always time to make new choices. So I see the road in front of me, but it's not easy to know exactly how to walk down it.

It will no doubt come clear, in time.