personal responsibility – Sweat & Sparkle

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I spent most of the night listening to my husband’s soft breathing beside me, watching shadows shift slowly on the bedroom walls, and thinking. A lot.

Maybe it was actually a blessing in disguise, because instead of getting frustrated that I couldn’t sleep, I decided to go with it. Think. Pick up that thread. Pull on it. Keep following it. And when the train of thoughts got uncomfortable, I pushed on, let it sting, and then simply asked: “So what now?”

I won’t bore you with too many details of my late-night pondering. Hours of sleep-deprived imaginings are not exactly coherent, anyway. In a nutshell, I just got to thinking about how I am back to playing games with myself, doing a half-hearted workout to say I did one, snacking and not logging it in my food diary, convincing myself I will do better tomorrow, and how all of that is inevitably going to add up to being right back where I started.

The very thought of that made me feel like someone was stepping on my chest. Hell, no! I worked so hard to lose this weight, to get stronger, to run again, to be proud of myself. Why am I so hell-bent on shitting on all of that and ruining all of my hard work and progress?

I woke up today, after finally dozing off, with one thought: I am going to succeed today. It’s non-negotiable. I owe it to myself. Get back on track, finish this journey strong, find new goals to focus on and surpass.

I don’t want to regain any more weight or slowly slide back into unhealthy habits that leave me discouraged and unhappy. I have wasted enough time in that dismal head space over the years, and I don’t want to go back.

I don’t know why last night’s insomnia-induced musings finally opened my eyes, but it is worth the fatigue I am slogging through today. I just keep repeating to myself, “I am going to succeed today.” And I will. And tomorrow too, and the day after that.

I owe it to myself, and no one can do this for me, so time to get back to work.

I don’t pretend to be an expert in self-growth, but I do know that no real growth can take place when it is smothered with self-pity, victim playing, and a refusal to accept responsibility for your own decisions and actions. It is impossible to move forward if you have cemented yourself to the past and insist on begging everyone to feel sorry for you and watch you bleed from wounds you tore open yourself.

I suspect that’s the ulterior motive for some people. If you package yourself as a perpetual victim, then you don’t have to change anything. You don’t have to actually do anything at all. You can whine, complain, sob, whimper, and moan, which is a hell of a lot easier than taking a good, honest look in the mirror and tackling the hard work of change and improvement. You can sit back and wallow in the sympathy and hand-holding of enablers instead of being an adult.

To me, that is failure. But for someone who never intends to change, who only wants attention and drama, who just wants to brush off responsibility by pointing at others and bitching their way through life, I guess that’s considered success, in a pathetic sort of way.

When your heart festers with lies, bitterness, jealousy, and pettiness, it’s absurd to pretend that the real problem is anyone or anything else. In fact, it’s downright stupid. When your norm in all aspects of life is chaos, conflict, and combat, you have got to stop denying the truth: the common denominator is you. Only a fiercely immature and unlikeable person is incapable of self-examination and unaccepting of any responsibility in his or her choices in life.

Again, I don’t pretend to be perfect. I don’t have it all figured out. Recently I found myself slipping back into old habits, and I started leaning on worn-out excuses: I work a lot. I’m tired. I deserve a break. Blah blah blah. I refused to accept that from myself. Have I worked so hard to make positive changes in my life, in me, just to regress to unhelpful and negative choices? I matter too much to me to do that. My loved ones matter too much to me to do that.

I suspect I have stumbled across another key point: when you simply don’t care about anyone but yourself, then you are not motivated to do better or to be better for them. They are not worth the effort. I am grateful that I am not in that position. I am sorry for anyone who chooses to remain in a state of interminable rot, with pity and drama filling their lives instead of true caring or meaningful relationships. I could never settle for that, but clearly, some people can. They will never know what they are missing, but I do.