Owning up to my life.

I read a quote today that really made me think. I suppose I read a lot that makes me think, but this really stood out to me. I keep a journal of quotes that I want to be able to come back to and this one made it into the journal. Taken from the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, it reads as follows:

"As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff of it is bad for you."

In our lives we are constantly bombarded with decisions that we need to make, roads we need to go down. Sometimes these decisions are blatant, like "Do I go to my friends house?" or "Do I marry my boyfriend?" or "What do I make for dinner?". We are aware that we are making these decisions. Sometimes, however, the decisions are not obvious questions that are posed to us but rather ways of life we live. Who we hang out with. What we do with our time. What thoughts we think. What we read. How we treat others. All these scenarios result in us making a decision. We decide who we are each time we respond to our children or talk to our friend or sing along to a song on the radio.

We are fully responsible for which way we go, the decisions we make in life are our decisions to own. So why is it then that if the decision doesn't take us where we wanted it to, we tend to resent other people or things that we say made us make that decision?

I am where I am at because of decisions I made. I own that. It is no one's responsibility but my own.

Just because I own the responsibility of my decisions doesn't mean they are easy. Doesn't mean I don't sometimes think, "oh, if only . . ." But what is the purpose of that? What do I accomplish with those thoughts? Do those thoughts in any way make my situation better? Do they change where I am at? No.

I have often heard the statement "Quit future tripping." I would say this holds true to the past as well. I cannot go back and change a decision I made. What I can do is learn from my past decisions, take control and own up to all my future decisions. What I do, how I treat others, how I spend my time, who I spend my time with, and how I define myself as a person is in my hands.