Love Letter to Myself: Take Responsibility and Don’t Be A Blame Artist! — Part 2

“Social media has provided people whose lives are in disarray the means to teach a mass audience how to organize their lives. More so, Blame Artists now have a mass avenue to play the victim, lament or blame some external forces for ALL their misfortunes.”

About a year ago, I wrote “Love Letter to Myself: Take Responsibility and Don’t Be A Blame Artist!”. It was about the importance of having the right attitude and taking responsibility. And in that piece, I shared my thoughts, opinion and learnings about Blame Artists; people who derive satisfaction from being the victim of their circumstances with little or no desire to take responsibility for any adverse outcomes in their lives.

Some weeks ago, I came across the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life” by blogger and author Mark Manson. Reading through his work, I found a lot of what Mark wrote to be an extensive overview of how to take responsibility and why it is essential to do so. Mark believes that there is a simple realization from which all personal improvement and growth emerge. According to him, it is the realization that we are inherently responsible for everything in our lives, no matter the external circumstances.

“Although we might not always control what happens to us, we always can control how we interpret what happens to us and how we respond. And whether we consciously recognize it or not, we are always responsible for our experiences and constantly interpret the meaning of every moment and every occurrence.” — Mark Manson

He also shared an example that I found fascinating;

“If you woke up one day and there was a newborn baby on your doorstep, it would not be your fault that the baby had been put there, but the baby would now be your responsibility. You would have to choose what to do. And whatever you ended up choosing (keeping it, getting rid of it, ignoring it, feeding it to a pitbull), there would be problems associated with your choice — and you would be responsible for those.”

The Social Media Element

Especially in an era where social media now plays a huge part in our daily lives and helps to exponentially amplify the impact of our actions and reactions, I couldn’t agree more that it can be very important for us to consider how we react to the events that happen to us and around us.

This can be particularly crucial if we take into account the increasing urge many of us have to express ourselves and share almost all our life events with the entire world online. I personally have found the recommendation of Marc Reklau to be very valuable. In his book, How to Become a People Magnet: 62 Simple Strategies to Build Powerful Relationships and Positively Impact the Lives of Everyone You Get in Touch with, Mark recommended;

“If you have a problem, talk to a counsellor, pastor or a trusted friend. Don’t go public. Describing your suffering in public doesn’t make you an attractive person; it makes you quite boring and unattractive. Think of your friends who are constantly whining on social media. Do you find that attractive or pitiful?”

In summary, it might not always matter what happens to you in your life, but what would matter most is how you react. And when reacting, you might also want to reconsider if it is worth it to put out your problems on social media because, as Lou Holtz once said, it might just be that,

“…20% (of the people online) don’t care, and the other 80% are glad you have them.”